The Polish Development Fund and Google present the report "Competences of the Future"

Competences of the future are specific skills that enable undertaking and carrying out tasks in a work environment that is fundamentally flexible, geographically dispersed, susceptible to frequent and rapid changes, and assumes the necessity of operating digital technologies and cooperating with automated systems and machines using artificial intelligence.

In this context, it is deliberately worth talking about competences, which are understood more broadly and are associated with the development of specific attitudes, ways of thinking, learning and acting, rather than about specific, learned skills, whose set will be constantly modified in the face of the aforementioned changes.

Once meticulously listed in CVs, office software skills no longer provide a competitive advantage in the labor market today. Although the market still lacks programmers and IT specialists, programming skills are becoming increasingly common. In 2018, the European Commission halved its forecasts regarding nearly 1 million vacancies in programming positions in the EU.
What are these competences? According to analysts at McKinsey, competences of growing importance in the labor market can be grouped into three categories:

TECHNICAL AND DIGITAL COMPETENCES:

* advanced (understanding advanced digital technologies, the ability to develop and adapt them) – by 2030, workers in Europe will spend over 40% more time on activities using such competences. Few will possess them, and demand for advanced programming and IT skills will increase by 90%,
* basic (the ability to use digital technologies in everyday work, especially in problem-solving and information search): in Europe, by 2030, demand for them will increase by 65%.

SOCIAL COMPETENCES:

by 2030, demand for them in the European labor market will increase by 22%. The fastest growth, by one-third, will be in demand for entrepreneurship and the ability to take initiative.

HIGHER COGNITIVE COMPETENCES:

demand for them will increase by 14% by 2030. At the same time, the importance of basic cognitive skills (including basic data processing skills) will decline – in Europe by as much as 23% by 2030.

Meanwhile, experts from the World Economic Forum indicate that in the coming years, the most important competences will include:

  • PEOPLE MANAGEMENT – motivating, developing and directing people at work, identifying the best individuals to perform specific tasks;
  • NEGOTIATION SKILLS – bringing people together and reconciling differences, the ability to persuade people to change their attitude or behavior;
  • EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE – the ability to recognize one's own and others' emotions, manage them and use them in the process of assessment and decision-making, social orientation – striving to meet people's (clients') needs;
  • COLLABORATION WITH OTHERS – adjusting actions in relation to others' actions;
  • COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY – the ability to flexibly switch thinking between different problems or sets of rules;
  • COMPLEX PROBLEM SOLVING – developed abilities used to solve non-obvious problems in complex, real-world contexts;
  • CRITICAL THINKING – using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems;
  • CREATIVITY – the ability to come up with unusual or non-obvious ideas on a given topic or in response to a given situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.

 

Professions – forecast for 2020

Stable professions

Managing director and CEO Chief manager and operations manager Software developer and analyst Sales and marketing specialist Sales representative Human resources management specialist Financial and investment advisor Database and network specialist Logistics and supply chain specialist Risk management specialist Data security analyst Management and organization analyst Electrical engineer Organizational development specialist Chemical processing plant operator University and higher education teacher Compliance officer Energy and petroleum engineer Robotics specialist and engineer Oil and gas refinery operator and worker

New professions

Data analyst and data scientist AI and ML specialist Chief manager and operations manager Big Data specialist Technological transformation specialist Sales and marketing specialist New technologies specialist Organizational development specialist Software developer and analyst Process automation specialist Innovation specialist Data security analyst E-commerce and social media specialist UX and human-machine interaction designer Training and development specialist Robotics specialist and engineer People and culture specialist Information and customer service department worker Service and solutions designer Online marketing and strategy specialist

Redundant professions

Data entry worker Accounting and payroll worker Administrative and executive secretary Assembly and production worker Information and customer service department worker Business administration and services manager Accountant and auditor Warehouse worker Chief manager and operations manager Postal clerk Financial analyst Cashier and ticket inspector Mechanic Telemarketer Electronics and telecommunications installer Banker Driver Broker and sales agent Itinerant salesperson and canvasser Insurance, statistics and finance department worker Lawyer



Source: World Economic Forum (2018) The Future of Jobs Report 2018, p. 9. Professions appearing in more than one column of the table are listed due to differences between individual sectors.

What exactly is creativity?

The concept of creativity can be understood as the ability to create a new object or innovative concepts and to undertake innovative actions. The basis of such a process is knowledge, which allows using familiar concepts and reformulating them into a new solution. Creativity is based on a new perspective on a given problem or issue, and only the combination of knowledge and innovation allows proposing a new approach to a given matter. Importantly, creativity belongs to those key competences of the future that can and should be shaped and trained.

There are 4 types of creativity:

  1. high – characterizes people who, through their inventions, ingenuity and breakthrough innovations, completely change the field of their discipline;
  2. professional – this is acquired creativity, requiring an investment of time and effort. It characterizes, for example, musicians and academic researchers conducting their own scientific research;
  3. everyday – manifests itself in innovation, intelligence and flexible thinking and action. It characterizes, for example, employees solving extensive and complex problems;
  4. minimal – this is the ability for personal and innovative interpretation of events, actions or experiences; it is based on flexibility and intelligence in thinking processes. This type of creativity is found in solving mathematical tasks in various ways, or combining knowledge with new information provided that allows for a better understanding of a given phenomenon.

Collaboration with machines and algorithmic systems will require technical and digital competences; the ability to do basic programming is gradually becoming as fundamental as the ability to use office software.

However, the key competences are those that algorithms and robots will not acquire in the near future. Tasks requiring the ability for precise and flexible perception, creativity, and social and emotional intelligence are difficult to automate. These same competences will be essential for performing tasks complementary to the work of machines and automated systems. Emotional intelligence combined with entrepreneurship and critical thinking will also be needed to cope with the challenges of a radically flexible labor market and employment instability.

Working in project teams, often geographically dispersed and including "non-human" workers, will require skills in efficient management, coordination and decision-making. Such a defined set of competences is often also referred to as meta-competences or transferable skills, invariably important from the employer's perspective, regardless of the type of work actually performed at a given moment. They form a stable base for periodic retraining, which workers in the digital economy will require.

 

WEF analyses (2018) indicate that more than half of workers will need to upgrade their qualifications. One in ten employees will need radical retraining lasting more than a year.

In the OECD report The Future of Education and Skills: Education 2030, three additional "transformative competences" were identified, which give young people a sense of being innovative, responsible and aware: the competence to create new values (based on innovation, adaptability, creativity, curiosity and open-mindedness); the competence to reconcile tensions and solve dilemmas (requiring consideration of others' interests and values); and the competence to take responsibility (based on intellectual and moral maturity). As the report's experts stated, "to cope with novelty, change, diversity and uncertainty, individuals must be able to think for themselves and work in groups."

 

Full report: REPORT