As per the World Economic Forum report, Oct 2020, due to the pandemic effect, corporates are facing 2 major challenges– Automation & Economic uncertainty, due to which there is an increased focus on RPA (Remote Process Automation) so as to reduce their bottom lines. There has been a sudden change in the skills & job requirements in the corporate world. Research suggests that there would be
85 million jobs which will be replaced by 97 million new jobs by 2025
In lieu of these challenges, large corporates like JP Morgan, Amazon, PwC have increased their L&D budget so as to make employees reskilled as per the demands of the new normal. The top areas where L&D have been mandated to focus are:
1. Upskilling and reskilling : 59%
2. Leadership and management: 53%
3. Virtual onboarding: 33%
Interestingly even the small corporates have also joined the bandwagon. They (64%) have in fact bypassed the medium-sized (62%) & larger ones (56%) in prioritization of training & skill development within their companies.
As a result, the employees within the corporate have chosen to change their mindset & develop resilience in order to survive and keep themselves ahead of the change. This is a win-win situation even or corporate as reskilling employees has been seen as the most trusted strategy by corporates to retain the talent & cope up with the new surge in demand in other upcoming areas.
As per the L&D function within corporates, they see the below skills as the Most prominent skills for the year 2021, in ranking order:
1. Resilience and adaptability
2. Technology skills/digital fluency
3. Communications across remote or distributed teams
4. Emotional intelligence
5. Cross-functional collaboration
6. Leading through change
7. Change management
8. Dealing with Stress/being more mindful
9. Team management
10. Creativity
The data from reliable sources like LinkedIn are indicating the quantum leap into emerging roles by professionals of unrelated industries. A major shift is evident in engineering (67%), content (72%), and sales (75%). The folks transitioning into Data Science & AI have been noticed with the greatest change in their past profile.
The fasting growing skills in various function segments are:
Business
1. Customer Experience – Customer service & support, Journey mapping, Service blueprinting
2. Digital Marketing – Marketing tools (SEO– Google search console, Google web. dev, Screaming Frog SEO spider, Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Siteliner, etc)
3. Data Analysis – Storytelling with data, Data visualization, Tracking & analyzing data.
4. Financial statements and forecasting– Financial forecasting with Big data, Financial forecasting with financial statements
5. Analytical Skills – Data analysis, meta-analysis, data science
Sales
1. Data Analysis – Excel-based analysis
2. Technical Support – Understanding the role of a support engineer
3. CRM – Microsoft dynamics, Salesforce
4. Sales Process
5. Consulting – Selling with authenticity
Information Technology
1. Cybersecurity – Cybersecurity, Cloud-computing
2. Network Engineering – Networking & SSH, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
3. Analytical Skills – Meta-analysis through data science
4. Scrum & DevOps
5. Information Security – Soft skills for IT professionals
Software Engineering
1. React.js
2. Docker
3. AWS
4. Node.js
5. MongoDB
Learning trends amongst Gen x, Gen Y, Gen Z, post-COVID.
Generation Z (ages 18–24 years) has taken the lead in learning & reskilling themselves. Their focus is very clear which is their Career Growth. The data shows Gen Z has increased their learning by 2.5x since last year. The below charts show the comparison between all the three generations when it comes to reskilling & learning.
By: Gurpreet Singh Kapoor, PMP, ITIL, MBA
Credits & citations:
•LinkedIn-Learning_Workplace-Learning-Report-2021
•LinkedIn data that helped determine the fastest-growing skills: 722M+ members in over 200 countries
• 55M companies • 14M jobs • 115,000 schools • 16,700courses • 36,000 skills
Disclaimer: Kindly note that all articles have been submitted by members in their individual capacity.