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It is very common to hear about the difficulty of getting hired for new graduate students who do not have job experience. This kind of situation represents a failure for schools and in particular for the universities that cannot properly train their students, displaying a lack of practical skills. Regarding universities, it is true that now there is more awareness about the importance of the training, on the other hand it is not difficult to find universities where practical activities are not mandatory. So, it is clear enough that the gap between the enterprises’ needs and skills provided by universities has not been filled.
The entry into the labour market should be a step that happens in tune between universities and companies, avoiding in this way, any trauma or inconvenience for the interns. To conclude, companies and universities need to cooperate more effectively, in order to create better employers, employees and citizens.
The theoretical part of the chapter aims to learn about the skills that will be needed in the future in light of research and literature. By reading this part of the chapter, you will learn how future skills are defined and what the model of future skills is and how they are divided in it. Furthermore, you will learn about the dimensions of future soft skills and which skills will count in the future in the light of research.
The practical part of the chapter covers 6 courses with 18 soft skills identified as most needed in the labour market of the future. They were selected from 42 soft skills identified in the academic literature during desk research based on interviews with entrepreneurs, academic staff and students from Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Portugal and Poland.
The term 'future skills' is defined as 'the ability to act effectively on a complex problem in the future, unknown performance context'. It refers to an individual's disposition to act in a self-organized manner, externally visible as performance. The future skills model divides future skills into three interrelated dimensions: The first dimension of future skills is the subjective dimension of future skills profiles. It refers to the subjective, personal capacities of individuals to learn, adapt and develop in order to enhance their chances to participate productively in the future workforce, actively shape the future work environment and engage in shaping societies to meet future challenges. It includes seven profiles of future skills. The second dimension of future skills refers to an individual's ability to act in a self-organized way in relation to an object (object dimension), task, or issue related to a specific topic. It emphasises a new approach that is rooted in the current understanding of knowledge but suggests moving knowledge a few steps up the ladder, linking it to motivation, values, and purpose, and impregnating it with a disposition to act in a self-organising way in a particular field of knowledge. It is not just seeking more knowledge, but dealing with knowledge in a different way, which leads to professionalism rather than knowledge expertise. The third dimension of future skills refers to the individual's ability to act in a self-organising way in relation to his or her social environment (the social dimension), society, and the organisational environment. It emphasises the dual role of the individual as curator of their social portfolio of membership in several organisational spheres, and at the same time the role of rethinking organisational spaces and reinventing organisational structures to make them future-proof.[1] The dimensions of future soft skills were developed on a five-degree scale.
Figure 1: Dimensions of future soft skills
In research, the terms skills and competencies appear alternately. They can be read as synonymous. However, their substantive content, skills, and competencies cannot be treated separately, as both concepts require:
The world is changing. Changes affect almost every sphere of our lives. New technologies and new communication channels affect not only the real economy and changes in the way goods are produced and services are provided, but also work, culture, value systems, and so on.[3] The changes observed in the field of technology, social behaviour, how businesses operate and the needs of consumers are the result of innovation and the introduction of new pioneering solutions. At the same time, there is a phenomenon of non-linearity of development, which introduces uncertainty to the functioning of the economy, which for many years has been described in the literature as a turbulent economy to emphasise the speed of changes. These processes are also superimposed by external, natural phenomena, independent of humans, e.g. COVID pandemic, volcanic eruption, and typhoons. Political instability affecting the global economy is also observed. These processes create new challenges for employees, as their previous experience and skills do not take up these phenomena.
The development of technology influences what soft skills will be necessary to foster effectiveness of work. The competencies of the future are not only technical skills. Of course, there are also the soft skills characteristic of humans, i.e. the employee's communication skills, which robots do not possess. The time of dynamic changes in the market, associated with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, has shown entrepreneurs how important business is flexibility in action, creativity, and the ability to quickly assimilate new knowledge. It is no wonder that employers are currently looking for such competencies in candidates - as they are universal and needed in every industry. Other soft skills such as communication skills, effective cooperation, critical thinking and analysis, responsibility, and stress resistance are also gaining importance. An important issue is the diagnosis of competence gaps. Well, competencies and organizational management success go hand in hand. Employers need to be mindful of raising the competencies of their employees. Soft and hard skills should be developed simultaneously, as it is this kind of employee competence model that allows the creation of effective teams. However, it is not always easy.[4]
The competences of the future among family businesses, the tourism industry and for regional development are shaped even differently. These are listed in Table 1 along with their characteristics. according to Wyrzykowska and Balanovska (2018).
Table 1: Key competencies of the future
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1. Inference |
The ability to find the deeper meaning and significance of things, to see meanings that are not apparent at first glance. |
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2. Social intelligence |
empathy, being able to relate easily to other people, understanding their needs, reading their emotions, and building trust. |
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3. Adaptive thinking |
Ability to come up with new answers to problems through solutions outside the usual schemes and rules. Ability to react quickly to change. |
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4 Intercultural competences |
Ability to function in different cultural environments e.g. hiring employees from other socio-cultural areas (foreigners, people with different ethnicity, religion, background). Outsourcing to other countries. |
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5. Data synthesis
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The ability to collate large batches of data to produce knowledge that allows for argument based on numbers, e.g. collating sales data from several different branches of a company to predict orders |
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6. Proficiency in new media
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the ability to critically assess information circulating on social media and to create tailored content for their own benefit. |
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7 Multidisciplinarity |
Proficiency in understanding and combining the meanings of concepts from different disciplines. |
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8. Design thinking
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An intuitive way of working that produces innovations that combine elements of engineering, business, design, and social science. The ability to translate complex data into a multitude of simple, interrelated actions, the execution of which leads to desired outcomes. |
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9. Coping overload information
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The ability to select and find meaning in information noise. |
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10. Cooperation of virtual teams
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Working through virtual communicators without the required physical presence. |
Source: B. Wyrzykowska, T. Balanovska, Key competences of the future in family firms, Tourism and Regional Development 2018, no. 9, 109-117.
The importance of soft competencies is also evolving in the context of the transformation and changes of the economy ultimately described as economy 4.0. The economy is based on a new approach focused on short-term employment. How this approach affects soft skills needs is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Characteristics of work in an economy based on long- and short-term relationships
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Features: |
Dependent work in a traditional economy |
Working in a 4.0, digital, self-employment economy |
|
Features of work |
||
|
Level of specialisation |
High |
Specialisation combined with a broad profile |
|
Type of task performed |
Division of tasks, tasks according to specialisation |
Indefinite, variable tasks, based on current needs. possibility to choose tasks independently |
|
Level of employment risk |
Low: stability of the workplace and tasks performed |
High: lack of job stability, variability of tasks |
|
Level of risk related to social protection |
Low: labour protection in case of sickness, parenthood, unemployment, or retirement age according to the Labour Code |
High: no social protection of labour, privatisation of risks, full transfer of risks of changes in demand for goods to contractors. no possibility to negotiate social contracts |
|
Mobility |
Low |
High |
|
Employee evaluation |
Performance-based |
Based on the potential for further work |
|
Job profile expectations |
Carrying out assigned tasks, observing procedures |
Creative problem solving |
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Shaping your career |
||
|
Motivating |
External motivation system, the employer is responsible for motivation |
Internal motivation system, high level of self-discipline |
|
Upgrading skills |
Employer's substantive and financial co-responsibility |
Self-responsibility, both substantive and financial, need for continuing education, bearing the risks associated with training |
|
Self-branding, reputation building |
Not required |
Necessary |
|
Competitive advantage |
"hard" knowledge, usually acquired through formal education |
Creative use of existing knowledge |
|
Promotion |
Vertical, related to hierarchy in the company |
Level, associated with greater responsibility and greater opportunities to influence the shape of work |
|
Skills required |
||
|
Sales skills |
Not required for non-sales positions |
Necessary for any position, broadly defined, including selling one's own skills |
|
Analytical skills, critical thinking |
Depending on the position, mostly desirable but not required |
Necessary for every position. This applies not only to the work itself in terms of carrying out orders, but also to activities associated with, for example, winning orders or assessing the profitability of planned investments. |
|
Ability to put knowledge into practice, solve problems |
Depending on the position, more or less is required. Strong emphasis not on problem-solving but on working according to procedures. |
Essential for every position builds competitive advantage |
|
Ability to adapt to variables contingent upon continuing education |
Not required due to regular job and regular job duties. The need for continuing education is decided by the employer. It takes place at his/her expense, often during working 7 hours. |
Essential. The flexibility of action is becoming the paradigm of new work. Continuous learning is a must - so as not to lose the competitive edge you have. |
|
Creativity, own initiative |
Not required. unnecessary and undesirable in many professions, instead of expecting instructions to be followed and procedures to be followed |
Necessary because of building the competitive advantage of the person as a brand. |
|
Cooperation skills |
Desirable but not necessary |
Absolutely required (carrying out project tasks in constantly changing teams) |
|
Social, so-called soft skills, including active listening and effective interpersonal communication skills |
Desirable, but not absolutely required. |
Necessary at a high level. Networking is an additional desirable resource |
|
Personal finance skills |
Not required |
Necessary due to irregular revenues and the need to commit own resources to 7projects |
|
Motivation, self-discipline |
Desirable, but not necessary. For the most part, motivation, and control of work discipline on the part of the employer |
The necessary self-motivation and self-discipline both at the stage of seeking orders/projects and at the stage of their execution |
|
Entrepreneurial skills |
Not required |
Essential |
Source: A. A. Janowska, M. Skrzek-Lubasińska, Competences of the future under the conditions of economy 4.0 expansion, Studia Ekonomiczne. Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Katowicach, No. 379, 2019, 57-71
All studies and publications indicate that the importance of soft skills will increase. This has been made very clear by the pandemic situation and the increasing importance of economy 4.0. The different contexts of research on soft skills of the future discussed above show that this issue is not clear-cut and that expectations about these skills will continue to change with global changes.
The BEGIN team conducted research combining desk research and in-depth interviews in 5 countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Poland). The research identified a broad catalogue of soft skills important to employers identified in the desk research phase. All the above data allowed the creation of a catalogue of 42 soft skills, which were then consulted and adopted by the partnership. On this basis, a questionnaire for in-depth interviews was constructed, in which respondents indicated the current and future importance of particular skills. Thirty-eight respondents took part in the research, 14 entrepreneurs, 14 representatives of academic staff and 10 representative students.
The research carried out allowed the importance of each of the identified 42 soft skills to be determined now and in the future, according to the methodology for determining the importance index. This was used to determine the average importance index from all partners' surveys and to identify the 18 most important soft skills for the future:
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