Why soft skills are so important to the future of work

Employers often use the term “soft skills” as a catch-all for everything that’s not considered a core, cognitive ability related to a job (like writing code for a programmer or running data analysis for a marketer). Those soft skills might include everything from creativity to collaboration to punctuality, and they’re increasingly important as our work changes in the face of automation and artificial intelligence.

The chart above from the World Economic Forum shows exactly which of these skills will be most important for the future of work. In general, soft skills encompass creativity, problem solving, collaboration, empathy, and flexibility. These abilities generally can’t (or won’t) be offloaded to AI any time soon, and they’re skills that make it easier for people to adapt to changing work. As AI emerges and reshapes many of the tasks associated with our work, the soft skill tool kit is what will help you adjust and retrain so you can keep doing your job.

When hiring, alongside assessments for the cognitive functions of the job (the programming or data analysis), measure the soft skills that candidates bring to the table. Here are a few ideas for ways to assess those skills during the hiring process:

For existing employees, these soft skills can be developed and nurtured. Here are six things you can do to set up your team for success in the future of work:

We’re rapidly entering a world in which the work we do looks radically different than what we did a decade ago, a year ago, or even yesterday. AI and automation are rewiring the nature of work to focus more on the very qualities and talents that make us human. To succeed in this future, we’ll need to embrace those abilities, seek them out when hiring, nurture them as managers, and hone them as individuals.

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