Digitization, artificial intelligence, global crises – the world is constantly changing and creating unknown uncertainties. How can companies get ahead of these uncertainties that the future holds? Through employee training! We show you which seven power skills your employees need to be able to react confidently to change and successfully shape the future of your company.
Our modern business world is more dynamic than ever before. Organizations face a multitude of challenges, be it global crises or technological revolutions.
The only constant that we're certain of is – Change!
This forces companies to rethink their strategies and work processes on an ongoing basis.
However, this is often problematic because many companies find it difficult to react flexibly to changing conditions and adapt to them quickly enough. A full 70 percent of all attempted transformation projects fail!
But why is that?
Employees Lack Future Skills
The answer comes from those who not only anticipate change, but also have to implement it – the employees. They are the ones who give the organization the flexibility it needs to meet constantly changing requirements.
However, these demands on employees are now higher than ever:
- In the coming years, 97 million new jobs with completely new profiles are estimated to be created.
- Companies assume that the skills of 44 percent of their employees will change over the next five years.
- By 2027, one in six employees will probably require upskilling or reskilling in order to keep pace with developments in the world of work.
Despite this, many employees are not sufficiently equipped for change:
- 70% of people do not feel prepared for the future of work.
- 70% of employees state that they have not mastered the skills required for their work.
- 58% of employees believe that their skills have become obsolete since the pandemic.
In short: Companies lack future viability because their employees lack future skills.
Equipping employees with the right, future-relevant skills at an early stage – for many companies, closing the increasing skills gaps is a herculean task.
Of course, there is also the question of how, but above all the question of what is causing these headaches.
What exactly do employees need to learn today in order to solve the problems of tomorrow?
What Future Skills Do Companies Need?
The P21 Framework (The Battelle for Kids P21 Framework for 21st Century Skills), developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21), provides valuable guidance in this regard.
This model describes the skills that make you successful in a professional context: It combines traditional academic knowledge, life skills, learning and innovation skills as well as information, media and technology skills.
Other frameworks alongside the P21 framework, such as that of the World Economic Forum & Boston Consulting Group, propose similar and complementary skills. However, they all emphasize the need for communication, collaboration and digital skills as well as social and cultural skills for the 21st century workplace.
At Masterplan.com, we have transferred these dimensions to the requirements of the business world and derived seven key competencies: the Power Skills.
These skills promote flexibility, adaptability and innovative strength and enable organizations not only to cope with change, but also to actively shape it and achieve sustainable competitive advantages.
Lena Kuschke, Head of Content & Marketing at Masterplan.com, emphasizes:
"Hard skills remain important. However, in a rapidly changing world, these job- and role-specific skills are also constantly changing. That's why employees need power skills. They are the basic human skills that enable us to learn new hard skills on a self-taught basis."
The 7 Power Skills at a Glance
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The seven Power Skills are designed to holistically prepare companies and their employees for the future. Each Power Skill comprises different domains, i.e. sub-categories that cover all relevant aspects of a skill.
Let's take a closer look at the power skills and their domains:
Thinking & Deciding Clearly
Employees who can think and decide clearly, keep their cool in a complex working environment. If employees master this skill, they know exactly which facts are reliable and when their gut feeling is misleading.
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Communication
Through effective communication, employees make themselves heard. Whether in presentations or one-on-one, they have the necessary skills to persuade, connect, inspire, and succeed, both online and off.
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Emotional Intelligence
Regardless of what you want to achieve in life, it all starts with knowing yourself. Mastering emotional intelligence is key to thriving in both personal and professional relationships.
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Collaboration & Leadership
How teams interact with each other can make work either fulfilling or a constant struggle. Even more if you are a leader. But no matter the hierarchy: sharing ideas, coaching others and adaptability are collaboration skills we all need.
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Creativity
Unlock the creative potential in every aspect of your workflow. Employees learn strategies and frameworks to fuel creativity and foster innovation so that they can approach their projects, problems, and pressures from a new point of view.
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Digital Literacy
In today's world, being digitally literate is as important as knowing how to read and write. Employees with digital literacy skills can safely navigate digital platforms, analyze data, and communicate effectively through a variety of mediums.
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Global Citizenship
In the 21st century, global citizenship is essential in order to be able to meet current developments and challenges competently. These include the awareness of social issues, sustainability, but also the latest trends and competencies in the world of work.
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Status Quo 2024: Power Skills Not Yet Sufficiently Present in Companies
As important and effective as they are, power skills are not yet extensively developed.
The Masterplan Study 2024 "Upskilling for the Future" asked executives and professionals from the field of HR management from around 250 DACH companies about the skills that will be important for all employees in the future and the extent to which they are currently already present.
Companies currently rate their employees' Power Skills as mediocre for the most part. There is a skills gap between the stated relevance and actual level of skills, particularly for skills such as collaboration and leadership, digital skills and communication.
According to only 30% of respondents, the much-needed digital skills are strongly developed in their own company. Similarly, only 21% of those surveyed consider collaboration and leadership skills to be adequately present. Global awareness came last with only 16%.
With the seven Power Skills, it is therefore clear what employees need to learn today in order to be prepared for the future. Which this however, also comes the query of how to effectively teach these power skills.
In the following, we will show you what learning power skills with Masterplan.com looks like in practice.
Power Skills in Action: How Your Employees Learn with Masterplan.com
At Masterplan.com, our goal is to prepare your company for both current and future business challenges in the best possible way – through in-company training! Nevertheless, this can only succeed if all employees recognize the individual added value of further training and enjoy their learning.
On our platform, we therefore ensure that all company employees precisely develop the power skills that are relevant to their individual day-to-day work, but in a more fun way!
Guided Self-Evaluation
Learners start with a guided self-evaluation in which they assess their skills in an interactive way. Based on this information, we then recommend which power skills are most relevant for them.
In addition, your employees answer single-choice questions and also use a slider to determine their skill level.
Personalized Recommendations
Based on their answers, we recommend three Power Skills that are most relevant to each one of your respective employees. Which of the seven skills they start with is entirely up to them.
Individual Growth Map
With the help of a personalized Growth Map, learners always have an overview of their individual learning progress. For each Power Skill and each domain, employees can see which courses and lessons are still pending or have already been completed and how they are improving in the respective area of expertise.
Gamification elements provide additional motivation, learners collect points for each completed lesson, which have a positive effect on the development of the power skills. This makes learning progress visible and provides continuous incentives to continue learning.
Conclusion: With Power Skills into a Successful Future
In this article, we showed:
- Why a successful future for your company starts with your employees,
- What skills they need for the business world of tomorrow and
- How they can learn these skills efficiently.
To help you get started right away, we have translated the answers to all three questions into an interactive learning experience on Masterplan.com and combined it with an intuitive learning management system.
Our learning engagement platform brings learners and managers together in the best possible way. With us, you not only offer your employees a motivating learning experience and develop them individually, but also effectively manage learning within the company.
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Manfred Rump
