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Today’s five hot job skills: Know what to look for

 To succeed in today’s job world, employees of all ages must learn to adapt, manage stress, and work well in a team.

BY MARNIE WRIGHT

Many factors, coupled with economic trends that require world-class employee skills in every field, have changed the type of individuals that employers need to hire. In B.C., for instance, we have a new skill shortage pressure point related to what the provincial government calls “the Olympic impact” in its 2004 labour market summary. Supply shortages will result in key areas related to preparing for, and staging, the 2010 Winter Games.
Today’s demographic trend of an aging population and high retirement levels will put significant pressure on many major B.C. industries, even if we see an end to mandatory retirement.

Many businesses will likely face significant skill shortages in the near future, regardless of the average age

of their workforce. Employers will either have to find innovative ways to help existing employees make the transition or recruit new employees with specific competencies that keep their organization on the cutting edge.
Meanwhile, technology creates new demands for workers to keep pace with specific technical abilities; it raises the skill requirements of almost every type of job in almost every industry. Employees of all age groups struggle to keep up with the latest-and-greatest versions of essential software packages in their field.

Hot skills keep employees engaged [subhead]
In such a highly dynamic work environment, it pays to know today’s hot skills:
·        Ability to keep learning and fast;
·        Adaptability;
·        Teamwork;
·        Mentoring; and
·        Ability to manage stress.

 Let’s examine these sought-after skills individually:
· Learning — A willingness to learn and an interest in lifelong learning are perhaps the most important hot skills for today’s employee. In our Information Age, knowing how to do one thing to perfection is not in demand; in fact, it’s outdated, “ice-age” thinking. 

To keep pace with change, organizations need to hire people who can evolve their skills in short order — no time for perfection. They read, surf, and chat their way naturally and seamlessly to a new set of skills and apply that knowledge to your business.

Many employers maintain the ice-age concept that the learning they sponsor has to relate to either an employee’s current job or the organization’s business objectives. What motivates and energizes your employees is elusive and an individual’s interests ebb and flow over time.  Investing a few hundred bucks in painting classes for your mailroom clerk could lead to an innovative idea that saves your company millions. You never know where the connection between learning and application are. 

The trick is to keep employees engaged; that way, when you need them to pick up a new skill, they do so naturally because they have evolved with your company. The hottest employee benefit for this kind of worker, young or old, is time off and compensation for professional development.

Adaptability can define competitive advantage [subhead]
· Adaptability — Our world is constantly speeding up. Employers need to recruit individuals who can cope with change and adapt to the needs of the workplace. What does this look like? It’s when employees are willing to rethink how to do things and then implement those changes in a few hours or days. When any clients change their mind, these employees can adjust and change to meet the clients’ needs.

The adaptability factor can define an organization’s competitive advantage; it begins by valuing and rewarding the skill in action. Acknowledgements need to happen on the spot, because next week, your adaptable employees

will be onto something new.
· Teamwork — Although this concept has been around forever, it has grown critically important in today’s workforce. The old functional department, which acts as an independent, isolated silo, never proved effective, but now such a structure faces an insurmountable obstacle: it blocks information flow.

More and more organizations are creating both cross-functional and project teams to create effective and efficient systems. In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge defines systems thinking as follows: when all players involved in a process work together regardless of their functional department. Employers need to develop teams that can resolve disputes internally and self-manage projects without heavy-handed guidance. As an interdependent society, we need to break communications barriers, not fortify them.

What do good teamwork skills look like? Good team players can interact with a wide variety of people in the workplace and on a regular basis. They know how to listen to others and they understand the value of asking questions. They are curious about what other people do. They have fun with their co-workers, laugh, and enjoy the day. They take the work itself seriously, but approach others with a laid-back style.

Think of mentoring as simple exchange of skills [subhead]
· Mentoring — Mentoring is one part teaching, one part leading, and two parts coaching. Mentoring is a hot skill for employees of any age, but particularly for ones who have worked where one person owned the job for 20 or 30 years and then either retired or died of exhaustion. 

Thankfully, the work world is changing and employers realize that knowledge transfer is an important part of remaining competitive. This means that sharing information becomes key. The ability to mentor demands a shift in perspective; someone must be willing to give up the job security related to being the only one who knows. Building that mentoring skill needs to happen throughout one’s career, not just at the end.

Here’s a new and innovative approach: look at a mentoring program as simply an exchange of skills between employees of any age. This breaks away from the common idea that the more senior employee mentors the young up-and-comer. In today’s marketplace, the more senior employee might gain a lot by trying on a new skill set in exchange for the wisdom of experience. 

Create a path of evolution for employees [subhead]
· Ability to manage stress — We all experience the pressures associated with an increasingly stressful work world where the do-more-for-less concept has become a fundamental assumption. How an employee copes with work stress can often define his or her long-term potential in terms of future growth and development. 

The huge cost of stress-related medical leaves has hit most employers hard and it affects productivity, morale, and the bottom line. The issue has become so significant that employers need to screen carefully for stress management as a hot skill.

In the past, token questions about an individual’s hobbies and interests made a pleasant way to end an interview without too much emphasis on the response.  Today, employers need to carefully probe an individual’s work-balance tools to ensure that he or she can handle the heat of the pressure-filled workplace. For existing employees, build programs that promote a healthy work and life balance.

Whether employers screen for new skills when hiring the best and the brightest of new employees or proactively work with existing employees to refine their skills, they must find a way to create a path of evolution for their employees. Learning, adapting, and mentoring create an environment where employees connect with, and accept, each other.  This essential connection allows information to flow within an organization. Together, individuals find their way through heightened team projects and processes to achieve improved business results. These positive teams and relationships, in turn, help employees cope with the ever-growing stresses of the workplace.

Marnie Wright is an HR advisor at the B.C. Institute of Technology. Contact: Marnie_Wright@bcit.ca

Reprinted from PeopleTalk Magazine Fall 2004 (V7, N3)

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