Currently, we can talk about a soft skills gap in the labor market. Research conducted before the pandemic showed that as many as 89% of executives reported difficulty in recruiting candidates who were equipped with the most important soft skills, such as communication, teamwork or leadership skills.

New technologies and the accelerated digitalisation of the working environment in the last two years have widened this gap, and workers need to deepen their skills in order to be able to adapt quickly to new conditions. Soft skills, previously relegated to the background, have become very important in the changing and digitized business reality, which is why they are more and more often called PowerSkills or company-wide competences.

PowerSkills, such as curiosity, the ability to make decisions under time pressure or the ability to adapt quickly to changes, have proven to be very important in the world of remote and hybrid work. Josh Bersin pointed out that the existing names „soft skills” and „hard competences” are not quite right. It is the so-called soft competences that are more difficult to build, and obtaining them requires a lot of effort. Hard competencies, on the other hand, are much easier to master and less durable because they require frequent updating.

In the 2022 Workplace Learning Trends Report, 4 areas of organizational reality were identified in which PowerSkills are extremely important. These areas are communication and teamwork, leadership and management, productivity and collaboration, and personal development and well-being. Analyzing the increase in the demand for competences in recent years, the most important ones that are becoming necessary in the modern labor market have been selected.

• Assertiveness is the ability to effectively communicate thoughts and feelings, be confident in your decisions and defend your own opinion without resorting to aggression or attack. Assertiveness, understood as self-control, respect and responsibility, is one of the most important competences in the field of communication and teamwork, whose demand increased by 250% from 2020 to 2021. Between 2017 and 2021, the demand for this competence increased by 602%.
• D&I is a competence in the area of leadership and management, which enables the creation of jobs that take into account the idea of diversity and equality in their strategy. Today’s employees want to feel belonging and acceptance in the workplace. The demand for competences related to the creation of an organizational culture taking into account DEIB from 2020 to 2021 increased by 205% (from 2017 to 2021 by 324%).
• Strategic thinking is also a competence in the area of leadership and management, which in the space of 2017 to 2021 has gained popularity by as much as 331%. Research shows that the ability to think strategically is strongly correlated with the possibility of promotion. It is strategic thinking that is becoming much more necessary and meaningful in organizations that have so far focused mainly on operational activities.
• Free use of digital tools – in the realities of remote and hybrid work, computer skills have become one of the most important soft skills in the area of productivity. The average employee checks their mailbox up to 15 times a day and spends 25% of their working day receiving and sending emails. Between 2017 and 2021, the demand for computer-related competencies increased by 404%, between 2020 and 2021 by 169%.
• Using English is a competence in the area of personal development, the demand of which in 2020-2021 increased by 150%. New technologies allow you to communicate with specialists from every corner of the world, and the use of English has become an everyday reality for many employees. A study conducted at Pennsylvania State University additionally indicates that people who speak more than one language are better at multitasking.

In the research conducted by NTUC LearningHub, the most important PowerSkills (Critical Core Skills) were selected, which employers define as key and desirable in the modern labor market. The most important PowerSkills from the employers’ perspective include:

• Adaptability – 52% of employers supported this competence. Adaptability allows you to quickly adapt to new conditions and dynamically react to changes. Adaptability can also be understood as flexibility, which proved to be extremely important during the Covid-19 pandemic, when most organizations were forced to switch to remote or hybrid working modes.
• Developing people is the ability to strengthen talents and use new models of organizational learning m.in social learning. This competence was supported by 48% of employers. The same survey also found that 9 out of 10 employees feel the need to improve their competencies in the next two years to maintain their positions and feel confident in their role. Companies that respond to this need will be able to consciously build development paths in the organization.
• Ability to cooperate and communicate – along with digitization and transition to a hybrid mode of work, the form of communication in teams has changed, as well as the principles of cooperation. Many meetings, projects and processes are carried out remotely, and this requires employees to build new competences in this area. Employers define the ability to cooperate (44%) and effective communication (43%) as one of the most important company-wide competences in the modern labor market.

The pandemic has only highlighted how important PowerSkills are in the modern job market. Employees show a lack of interpersonal relationships, team integration and informal conversations with colleagues. Enabling employees to develop soft skills, skills related to communication, cooperation and change management is key to building an agile business and a strong organizational culture.

Projekt otrzymał dofinansowanie z Norwegii poprzez Fundusze Norweskie 2014-2021, w ramach programu „Dialog społeczny – godna praca”.