Strategies for Developing Universal Skills for the VUCA World

Abstract

Over the past ten years, there has been a lot of talk about the importance of digital skills in the world of the future, about the ability to learn throughout life as the main quality of an employee, about how employers are increasingly beginning to appreciate the “soft” skills of employees. But few could have imagined that the future would literally come right now. Due to the introduction of quarantine in many countries around the world and the economic crisis, organizations are forced to transform in the shortest possible time, including reorganizing to remote work and mastering new digital tools for this. Even the usually conservative spheres of healthcare and education are urgently adopting telemedicine and distance learning. The success of the ongoing transformations is only partially dependent on technical readiness and digital skills. It is much more related to the extent to which managers and employees are ready to develop and make non-standard decisions, maintain communication, adapt work processes, and set priorities. The main idea is that the breakthrough development of digital technologies will not lead to digitalization of the entire economy. On the contrary, special human qualities will acquire additional value, since they cannot be automated. Another premise in favor of the gradual increase in the importance of a certain spectrum of human skills is the special conditions of the modern economy. It is very demanding on both business and society and an individual, even if we exclude the factors of crisis or force majeure. High expectations of individual performance and company results have become the new norm, and the rapid pace of change makes it impossible to predict what knowledge, skills and tools will be useful even in the foreseeable future.