What Skills And Attributes Are Essential In Today's Workplace?

The workplace today is ever changing, it is more immediate, more international, working from home is more commonplace, everyone is more mobile and everything is much less certain and predictable than before.

Do you have the skills and attributes to thrive in the workplace of today? Let’s take a look at some of these skills and attributes, so you can see which ones you need to develop further:

Flexible and adaptable. The unpredictable nature of today’s world means that being flexible and adaptable are key. This means being able and willing to change in order to suit different conditions. Are you flexible and adaptable?

Open and agile to change. Change is an essential part of business today whether reacting to change in the outside world, seeking out opportunities for change or effecting change. Being open and agile to change is accepting that change happens and positively reacting to and enacting change. Are you open and agile to change?

Proactive. To keep ahead of the fast paced nature of today’s world you need to be proactive. Being proactive means creating or controlling a situation rather than just responding to it after it has happened. Are you proactive?

Positive. Having a positive attitude will help you maximise your performance at work which is key to success. Also, if you maintain a positive attitude, this will be infectious and those around you will pick up on your positive energy. Do you have a positive attitude?

Self management. Working from home is now more commonplace and teams can be spread far and wide. This means that being able to manage your day to day work activities to meet your goals and objectives with less hands on supervision is an essential skill. How are you at managing yourself to achieve your goals and objectives at work?

Learning and developing. In an ever changing, uncertain and unpredictable world with rapidly advancing technology you need to be constantly learning and developing to perform the best in your role at work. This may be learning and developing from experience or more formal learning and development in both on the job skills and the softer personal development skills too. What learning and development do you need?

Problem solving. In a world of complex challenges, tight deadlines and change problem solving skills are critical. Problem solving requires analytical thinking, creativity and decision making. How are you at problem solving?

Communication and relationships. As the workplace is now more fragmented with rapid change in all areas good communication and relationships are very important. Good communication and relationships enable you to achieve your objectives at work. How is your communication and how are your relationships at work?

Collaboration and team working. As companies become more global and complex, work has become increasingly team based and teams have become larger, more diverse, dispersed and specialised. Successful collaboration with others and team working is therefore an essential skill in today’s workplace. How is your team working and collaboration?

Resilience. Resilience is the ability to recover quickly and positively from setbacks, to adapt well to change and to keep going in the face of adversity and challenging and difficult times, of which there are many in today’s world. How resilient are you?

So, which of these skills and attributes do you feel you need to work on and develop further?

Author: Liz Makin
Published: November 2021

Makin It Happen has a range of personal development online courses to purchase, created by Liz Makin, including anxiety management, communication, resilience, soft skills, stress management, time management and coaching. Liz Makin also provides personalised business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services to business owners, directors, managers and professionals.

Please email Liz@makinithappen.co.uk to arrange a FREE consultation session to discuss our business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services for business owners, directors, managers and professionals.