9 Skills for the future job in services — retail or manufacturing
By: Hugo'S Blog
Tags: Workplace, Work, Skills, Skills Development

When it comes to these, there are many opinions about it.

I read several articles, some books and watched some videos.

At this point two articles capture the basics on what everyone needs.

Even myself, to face the future needs of a demanding job.

Both articles are similar in the sense, they capture basic understanding.

Of those skills I see more and more.

Forbes’ article is too extensive and detailed, if you want to take a look follow this link.

On the other hand, the World Economic forum article is more general.

And it gives additional information that we will summarize here.

A curated list of skills is what we will cover and those that managers, directors, and VP tells me they’re seeing more and more.

As requirements to hire.

Strangely and not surprisingly enough those skills are never taught in your university.

I tried to cover those in a blog made before, follow this link if you want to check it.

I do not follow any specific order.

The last one though, it’s, from my point of view, the most important of all.

Creativity (1/9)

Everyone thinks about creativity as an artist, a painter, sculptor.

Someone that works on arts and at a marketing agency.

And that is not a bad approach, but obviously is not the only one.

And when it comes to work in finance, business, sales, manufacturing, retail, etc.

You may wonder what creativity could mean for those people?

How creative a person in accounting could be?

Constraints are in how you see yourself.

How do you think you can contribute.

A friend of mine in accounting considered this a very peculiar way.

She can be creative when her boss allows her time to do activities that reduce her time.

Making her spend less time after work hours.

Or taking a training class to be more effective at her job to make it in less time.

This will come at some cost at the beginning but later she will be rewarded.

As she won’t have to stay in overtime.

In sales, could be that a salesperson can try a different sales approach

To get new orders or new customers.

A legal office assistant said that creativity for her means.

Spend time with more time with lawyers to give more assertive reports.

Instead of generic and biased reports that need to be rewritten many times.

At the end, if you notice, people want to learn more and be more effective and efficient.

That is what can be considered creativity in an office environment.

Emotional Intelligence (2/9)

I won’t cover this much as I did it before in a previous blog.

Follow this link if you want to know more.

Generally speaking we are emotions and if they control you,

You can never make correct and meaningful decisions if you don’t think.

That is why it’s important to control your emotions all the time.

Look like a stone face, maybe not that much.

But you get my meaning, you have to control them and not the other way around.

Analytical thinking (3/9)

We live in a world of high data.

Data is everywhere and is created everywhere.

Helps make decisions.

Some of those bad and some good.

Not everyone knows how to analyze data.

Or doesn’t consider this as a cognitive skill they need to learn.

Maybe because I’m old enough to see the opportunities as they come.

Analysis of data can make you look like a smart person.

Because most of the people don’t use data to make decisions.

They just follow their heart and obviously companies don’t want to do that.

Start with simple data analysis software like Microsoft Excel.

Do not just stay there, as you progress in MS Excel you will notice.

Your knowledge is expanding and most likely will ask for more.

There are more other software that you can easily learn without cost.

Most common Tableu or Microsoft Power BI.

There are many more out there.

Important lesson here is to know that understanding data is a skill.

And in many cases a very well paid skill.

But more than just know how to visualize data in a more graphic way.

The skill is related to how you make decisions and how you correlate one data set with another.

Many people are very well skilled to analyze the data but not necessarily to think in an analytical way.

How do you do that?

First by spending time with people that do the same as you want to achieve.

In this case, expert people on excel.

Or if you already know Excel you can spend time with people that know Power BI.

If you don’t have access to them, then learn of your own.

All the time you need to have a challenge.

Something that you need to achieve, a problem that needs to be solved.

Decision Making (4/9)

After you have the information and analytical thinking that we covered before.

Here comes the hard part.

Jumping to the void.

Must make decisions.

Some will be good and some will be bad.

Most important is that you talk to you boss

Let him or her know that you need to improve your decision making skills.

And you will start making those “educated decisions”.

Using “calculated risks” or educated guesses that you learn from your analytical skill.

But one thing doesn’t happen just after the other.

Need to develop one skill, maybe not master it.

But take it to a level that you feel comfortable using the information you analyzed.

Once your superiors or peers see you as a person that knows how to use data.

Then you can talk to your boss and ask him or tell him that you want to make more decisions.

And that most likely you will make mistakes.

Ask him if he or she is willing to support you.

There shouldn’t be any concern from your manager to tell you yes.

As the priority for any manager should be the promotion of his or her team members.

If he or she hesitates then you need to ask him or her why and work on that to get a positive answer next time.

Communications Skills (5/9)

Probably the most underrated skill of all.

And from my point of view the most important of all.

Or I will say, the most common of all.

Inefficient communication is very common now as it was 50 0r 100 years ago.

Just that today is more easy propagated.

Because all the social media platforms.

Knowing how to communicate and when to verify the message transmission.

Is an art that not many can master.

Just a simple exercise of message verification can help you reduce a lot of future headaches.

Especially if any of the parts doesn’t have the same mother tongue.

Sometimes face or sound gestures are inevocatively and incorrectly understood.

Creating a waterfall of misconceptions that lead to mistakes and disappointments.

My experience told me that some Asian cultures tend to confirm as “yes” with a sound.

Like a “mmm” with the mount closed.

I made the mistake to assume as a “yes”, when sometimes it’s expressed as an “OK”

Not a confirmation of understanding but affirmation.

Which at the end doesn’t necessarily translate into understanding.

Asking whether if it was clear.

And also asking to reply with their understanding of the message will reduce the chances of mistakes.

That eventually will happen, but less frequent.

Stress Tolerance (6/9)

One manager I had a long time ago told me.

The more old and more positions you escalate in your professional life.

The more stress management skills you will develop.

There is no science here but to face the problems.

You have to be in charge of the problems in order to feel the stress.

And only there you can tell if you can handle it.

Many of us do not know if we’re made to handle stress.

Stress tolerance is very closely linked to our next topic.

Problem Solving (7/9)

How to solve problems is one the most hunted skills a company is looking for.

To make very good decisions and solve problems, the first thing we need to do is.

Make mistakes and don’t solve problems.

Sounds contradictory, but it’s.

In order to become a good problem solving person you need to learn how to do that.

One characteristic of a good problem solving person.

It is the capacity to listen and ask questions instead of making calls.

The more questions you ask the more information you will have.

And after that you can make a more informed decision.

Learning how to question, what questions to ask is a foundation for this skill.

Questions are not complex, just as the 5 W’s: What, What, Who, Where, When.

Maybe you can add into the How it was done.

Don’t be afraid to ask these questions.

Many people don’t do it because they think everyone will think they’re not smart enough.

Maybe at the beginning, but the more common for you is to ask questions.

The more comfortable people will be with you asking those questions.

Most of the smartest people I know asked many questions.

And remember that many times those questions are not necessarily for you to make the final decision.

What happens is that when people talk and explain their point of view.

They tend to learn more, and the more they learn the more they are ready to make the decision themselves.

Technology (8/9)

This is not necessarily the most important of all the skills we cover.

But no one can deny that in recent years there is a significant influence of technology in our lives.

Learning how to use your mobile phone to make a payment online.

Getting into a conference with Microsoft Teams.

Or taking classes with Zoom.

It’s becoming a natural part of our lives.

One of the most interesting things about technology that I noticed from 10 years ago.

Is where and how much it will cost you to learn that.

For example learning all those topics and many more can be found for free.

Even the most complex one, like for example learning MS Excel, or coding a computer language.

No need to pay for expensive courses when you can get all those online.

A multitude of videos on Youtube can help you start and sometimes master a topic.

More than technology, a skill that I consider very unusual is how to search on the internet.

Asking the proper questions to get the answer that you’re looking for.

Since everything is indexed and cataloged by google.

Then just using the right words will lead you to a website to get an answer.

Learning how to Learn (9/9)

And this becomes my final skill of the future.

How to learn, where to learn and how fast to unlearn something,

Something that was wrong and needed to learn a new thing.

Going to university and getting a degree is overrated.

Still in use, but pretty much useless.

Since universities never teach these skills.

Places like skillshare are becoming more and more popular.

But even there you won’t find these skills that we discussed there.

Why? Because these ones are life skills.

You learn them over a lifetime of making mistakes.

I cover some of those in my blog about things they don’t teach at university.

Not all is lost and not all can be learned from youtube.

Sharing experiences and key points from where to expose yourself.

In order to make those mistakes that will make you a better and more experienced person.

That is the value added you can get.

For example, getting a coach or mentor will guide you to make decisions.

To eventually learn those skills mentioned above.

And many more we did not cover here today.

Please remember that you can always reach me at any time.

You can ask any question and request any related topic you want me to cover.

Please email me at [email protected]