Who would have thought that a pandemic would accelerate the adoption of approaches, methods, and tools that were supposed to be the future of work? As a result, the need to get the skills required to perform day-to-day tasks has been evolving rapidly. 

As per the World Economic Forum 'Future_of_Jobs' 2020 report, it is estimated that 50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025. The report also highlights that 'skills-gaps' continue to be high among in-demand skills as jobs change over the next five years.

This is a two-way requirement problem, which requires both the employers and employees to be educated about the context, relevance, and scope of transferability for these skills. Understanding these three metrics will enable an organization or an worker to prepare for an unprecedented future with future skills.

Context is vital as skills are only meaningful in the context of a Job, A Role a Team or a Project.

Relevance also matters because a job role or a related skill, which seems crucial for an organization's success a few years back, may no longer be required.

Transferability of a skill is a critical factor in determining whether a skill is worth pursuing or not. With so much in flux, it it the skills that can be applied in multiple contexts that are most worthy of investment.

At Ibbaka, we are looking to enable people and organizations to understand better the skill landscape's context, transferability, and relevance. In this way, we are looking to positively impact how people work, grow their contributions and, in turn, elevate the communities to which they belong and strive to make better.

Organizations play a vital role in this. Organizations need to recognize the talent necessary to solve the challenges they face. Individuals need to hone the skill to be able to frame and solve these challenges. The these are two sides of the same coin. The fit can be for a job or role that you are planning to apply for, the insourcing or outsourcing that an organization needs to do based on the current skill set, or the performance feedback cycle.

Skills are pivotal in all these situations. At Ibbaka we think of skills as the currency of the knowledge economy. They are what makes networks of exchange possible. As a part of strengthening this currency, i.e., skills, and increasing their future value, Ibbaka is launching a series of interviews. I would like to connect with people from different organizations who share their experiences with skills and how they relate to individual and organization performance.

If you are an operational leader, or if you know someone closely involved in people management or talent management, we would love to hear more from them about their experiences. Kindly feel free to tag them here in the post or send a mail to kul@ibbaka.com if you are interested.

Please click on the links below if you want to know more about Ibbaka and our vision:

Assessing Skills as Part of Continuous Performance Management

Critical skills for the future of work - Managing trade offs

Who cares about skill and competency models?