The workplace as we know it is constantly evolving. Susanna Vogel, HR Brew Reporter, joins On The Job to discuss the most important skills for workers to develop in 2022, and why it may benefit you to pick up a few new tech skills.

On the Job

These are the In-Demand Skills for the Evolving Workplace

and joining us now to discuss skills in this ever changing workforce and job landscape. Susanna Vogel, H. R. Brew reporter Susanna welcome to the show, What are the most important. Hello or more useful skills for workers to develop this year in 2022. Yeah. So these people hit the nail on the head right there talking about tech skills and they're talking about communication and skills. We're in the middle of a digital transformation. And so tech is more important than ever. We see ai cloud computing as someone said, cybersecurity, all that's gonna be really important. But also they talked about communication, right? And so we have these rural specific skills that are the things I just talked about and then we have the foundational skills, you know, good communication, time management. That's never going to be out of style. It's always gonna be important. And particularly in remote and hybrid work, it's even more important. I'm so glad you mentioned that because how in demand are those soft skills like communication for at least the current state of work? I mean they're more important now than ever. Like I don't know if y'all are on slack and zoom all day, but it's one thing to communicate when you're sitting next to someone in the office and it's a whole different animal to communicate uh in hybrid and remote work. So it's really important that you can communicate what you're doing, why it's important and then sell it back to customers. So the full range of soft skills is important. Yeah, I think you're right. Communication is so underrated? A lot of folks we asked want to learn more tech skills makes complete sense. Why do you think learning new skills in this aspect is just so important? Yes, so a couple of reasons the first is that hires are looking for skills now more than just where you were at a previous company, we saw on linkedin that 40% of employers are looking at skills compared to only 20% last year. So very important to stand out in the recruitment process. But also if you've been out of the job for a while, your skills are gonna be, what makes you stand out, like what can transfer to this new role and what can help you succeed once you join the company as more and more companies want their workers back. What skills have you seen that people, employees are sharpening up on? Yeah, I mean it runs the gamut right? Like we heard from someone talking in that clip about wanting to learn cashier ng and then we heard people talking about cyber security, so it's really what's gonna make you the most effective at the role that you want to be in um for a lot of people that's tech, right? Skills have the shortest shelf life than we've ever seen. Most skills are going to be out of date by the next five years. So you want to be constantly refreshing your skills, particularly if you're in an industry that is as fast moving and fast paced as tech. I want to talk about an article that you recently wrote, I think it's so interesting you said a recession could trigger return to the office. How how would that happen? Well, Hybrid work and remote work started as a necessity with the pandemic, right? We couldn't leave our houses. But at some point in this, it shifted from being a necessity to being a big employee preference. If we have a recession, employees are gonna lose some of that bargaining power, right? Like our tight labor market might cool off a little bit. And in that case if employers and Ceos have really wanted people back to the office now that was a great time to demand it. They know they have more leverage, what is the number one argument that Ceos are making Susanna for bringing workers back to the office? Well, we just talked about communication, right? Communication, It's culture, It's that they feel that they can communicate what it means to work at their company and what it means to be passionate about that company better in person than on zoom or in a distributed workforce. So their argument is if you want to work here, if you want to be part of this, you have to show up and learn it. Do you think this is as far as remote and Hybrid. Do you think that that that's a trend that's here to stay Susannah. Oh, absolutely. People want it for some industries, it's gonna be a table stakes type of benefit. Um The extent to which we see hybrid work may change. You know, there may be fewer people who are hybrid, fewer people that are all remote. But if companies get really good at it, it can be here to stay, it can reduce your real estate costs, it can allow you to hire from all over the world, which lets you get that top talent right? Those sharpest skills than just if you are confined to your metro area. So it's definitely here. We'll see what percentage of workers end up shaking out to work where Susannah Vogel. Hr brew reporter. Thank you so much Susanna.