Fourth Industrial Revolution Skills: Skills of the Future

The changes facing human resources are no longer merely economic or technological. They have become changes in capabilities, behaviors, knowledge, and above all, in skills. With these changes, traditional skills have become inadequate for this stage. Some believe we have entered the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and confidence in the ability to predict what is to come has become a matter of doubt.

From Living the Future to Creating It

Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Jamous / PhD in Business Strategies

The changes facing human resources are no longer merely economic or technological. They have become changes in capabilities, behaviors, knowledge, and above all, in skills. With these changes, traditional skills have become inadequate for this stage. Some believe we have entered the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and confidence in the ability to predict what is to come has become a matter of doubt.

Since business organizations operate in an environment whose most important pillars now depend on answering a question recognized by management experts and placed among organizational goals—a question that strategies are meant to answer—this question centers on the issue of the future of human resources and jobs, and how to create this future instead of merely trying to live it without participating in its formulation and investing in it.

According to World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, the nature of work is changing rapidly and continuously. The main challenge lies in equipping the human resource with the skills they will need, regardless of what the skills of the future might be. These skills include problem-solving and critical thinking, as well as interpersonal interaction skills such as empathy and synergy. Governments must take active steps to better prepare their citizens to compete in the economy of the future.

With the dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we must shed light on the most prominent future skills required in the labor market, to find a way to move beyond the problem of living the future to creating it. Because the next phase requires training in the skills of making the future. Although training in future-making skills is a pure gamble, the attempt is less dangerous than not attempting to learn, acquire, and adopt the skills of making the future, which represent the skills of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Personal Skills

These are the skills an individual possesses to work in harmony and with empathy with others, share ideas and experiences, and motivate others toward achieving goals under all circumstances and overcoming all challenges. If you were asked: Are you the first person your friends come to when they need advice? Do you tend to speak in groups and share your ideas easily? If you answered yes, you can consider interpersonal and leadership skills as part of your personal skills. These types of skills can be the abilities we are born with, our natural talents, or things we develop through our experiences and deliberate practices. Whether it's innate competence or developed ability, knowing our personal skills is extremely useful in both our personal and professional lives.

• Leadership Skills: Possessing leadership skills such as sharing ideas and feelings, urging, persuading, and motivating individuals and groups, and the ability to responsibly face challenges related to policies, procedures, and authorities. Leadership skills express the skills you use in the process of organizing others and working with them to achieve a common goal. Whether you are in a managerial position or responsible for a project, you must possess these skills that allow you to motivate and inspire others to complete a specific series of tasks within the timeframe determined when the project plan was set.
• Ability to Work in a Culturally Diverse Environment: The ability to work with all individuals regardless of their race, gender, communities, and cultural, educational, and religious backgrounds. Dealing with a culturally diverse environment means knowing how to include all people (no matter how different they are in terms of gender, color, origin, background, beliefs, cultures, impressions, attitudes and inclinations, religions, hobbies and desires, people with special needs, etc.).
• Social Adaptation: It is the individual's ability to respond to and accept others, and work on accepting themselves and their own identity first. The individual feels happiness and psychological comfort in their life due to their harmony with their society and its members. And showing understanding, friendliness, adaptability, and empathy with others in usual and unusual social situations, and caring about the opinions of others.
• Conflict Resolution: Dealing with an open mind in conflict situations, accepting other opinions, following a rational argument approach, avoiding prejudices, and employing the best ideas stemming from different views and perspectives.
• Participation: Working and cooperating with others, and sharing ideas, opinions, and suggestions.
• Teaching and Training Colleagues: Participating in continuously teaching and training colleagues.

Communication Skills

Communication skills are needed to speak appropriately with people while maintaining good eye contact, showing a rich vocabulary and adapting the language of conversation to the participants in the communication session, listening effectively, presenting ideas appropriately, writing clearly and accurately, and working well in a group.

• Speaking Skills: These are the skills that give us the ability to communicate effectively. These skills allow the speaker to convey his message in an emotional, thoughtful, and persuasive manner. Speaking skills also help ensure that the person is not misunderstood by those listening, to convey and organize his thoughts, possess speaking skills and participate in dialogues, choose the appropriate way to convey his ideas, and respond to the recipients' reactions.
• Writing: These skills enable clear and accurate communication, and the preparation of reports, letters, instructions, and other work requirements.
• Listening: Good listening skills make a person more productive. The ability to listen carefully to others also allows understanding whether the tasks assigned to others are understood as expected by their management, not to mention receiving, understanding, interpreting, and evaluating verbal messages and body language appropriately.
• Interpreting and Conveying Information: Selecting and analyzing information and conveying results to others using verbal, written, graphic, and multimedia communication skills.

Analytical Skills

This skill helps the ability to collect information, analyze it, solve problems, and make decisions. These strengths can help solve problems, improve productivity, and overall success.

• Critical Thinking: To possess the mental and critical skills that enable him to conceptualize, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information of various types to make appropriate decisions. It is a complex, rational, or logical thinking process in which an idea is subjected to verification, evidence is collected and established objectively, and then a judgment is issued to accept or reject it.
• Numerical Skills: Using basic arithmetic, mathematical, and statistical skills in work applications.
• Creative Thinking: A complex and purposeful mental activity guided by a strong desire to search for solutions or reach original outcomes that were not previously known. This calls for the use of imagination and linking ideas and information in an innovative way, and connecting ideas that may seem unrelated and rearranging them in a way that gives new possibilities and options.

Technical Skills

Technical skills are those skills that enable the use of appropriate technology and computer applications in carrying out work. They are the abilities and knowledge necessary to perform specific tasks. They are practical tasks and often relate to mechanical, information technology, mathematical, or scientific tasks. Some examples include knowledge of programming languages, mechanical equipment, or tools.

• Selecting Technology: Choosing procedures, tools, and equipment, including computers and their programs, to perform tasks that will achieve the desired results.
• Applying Appropriate Technology for Tasks: Understanding the general purpose and appropriate procedures for preparing and operating machines, including computers and their applications.
• Using Computers to Process Data: Employing computers to obtain, analyze, and convey information.
• Understanding Systems: Knowing how social, organizational, and technological systems work and dealing with them effectively.

Data Processing Skills

Dealing with data and information, understanding them, determining how to access them, employ them, organize them, and judge their reliability.

• Reading: The ability to understand and interpret texts related to his field of work so that it enables him to perform specific tasks in the appropriate manner.
• Obtaining and Evaluating Information: Determining the need for information and obtaining it from available sources, or preparing, creating, and evaluating its credibility.
• Organizing and Storing Information: Organizing, operating, and storing written, electronic, and other records and information in a consistent manner.

Personal Attributes

These contribute to achieving goals to the highest degree and investing time in employing capabilities.

• Responsibility: Showing a high degree of effort and commitment towards achieving goals, working hard and efficiently in performing tasks by setting good standards and measures, paying attention to details, showing a high degree of focus on unwanted and routine tasks, and showing a high level of presence, vitality, accuracy, and optimism in accomplishing tasks.
• Self-Management: Being precisely aware of personal knowledge, skills, and abilities, setting personal goals realistically, following up on developments, and motivating oneself towards achieving goals, showing self-control, and responding to the opinions of others away from emotion.
• Time Management: Managing time effectively and setting priorities to complete tasks within their specified time.
• Flexibility and Adaptability: The ability to adapt to diverse tasks and perform work according to changing priorities, and participating positively in the face of praise and criticism, and providing an opinion at the appropriate time.
• Commitment: Commitment and discipline in performing assigned tasks, working according to priorities and quality level, and cooperating with others to complete work and correct errors.