Since generations before us, the need for college and professional degrees has often been reiterated and we spend a considerable number of the first one third of our lives acquiring these degrees to obtain suitable jobs and build careers for the rest two third of our lives. The status quo may have remain unchanged and continued for yet another few generations but for the pandemic that has made the degrees merely rubber stamps and it is quite evident that unlike our previous generations who were able to build their lifetime careers over a degree , it is no longer going to hold good. Degrees will no longer serve as passports to careers or jobs. What is required beyond degrees and a key driver is the skill sets. The rapid rate of change and dynamics of the ecosystem demands new ‘Talent’ . And what was talent a decade ago is redundant today. Many new roles, new skills and Jobs are emerging as an outcome of this change and metamorphosis. New set of skills and knowledge which is not just limited to theoretical understanding but also include diversity of thinking, emotional intelligence and above all ability to navigate through the demanding times which pandemic has brought upon us is going to be the answer to the future.
Undoubtedly, the pandemic has wrought enormous havoc and upheaval around the globe, yet it has also given a ‘peek into future’ for most of us. It has accelerated change and redefined the choices for careers. While remote working, virtual offices and digital economy are a reality today, an important question that needs to be addressed is – what new set of skills would require for future? How can we prepare for these skills? And is the concept of degree going to be redundant? The answers to these questions are mixed. Let us try to understand the issues one by one –
Digitization, automation and technological changes in every walk of our lives is a reality. That is driving a fundamental change in the nature of work and hence the nature of skills required for the same. Moreover, post pandemic, the world is also witnessing a lot of confusion and flux over economic factors defining opportunities. Whether we are talking about high- low skill for employment, declining household incomes, growing unemployment or underemployment , migration , labour-market opportunities, it is evident that future of work an skills are definitely going to be defined by some of these exigencies. The skills sets that would comprise critical thinking, analytical ability, technological creativity and emotional maturity, ability for active learning and continuous improvement, diversity and cultural intelligence, adaptability and most importantly resilience to embrace change are some of the key skills for future workforce.
As we understand, the nature of skills required for future workforce, we need to also ascertain the process of acquiring these skills. On one hand, while we understand that automation and technology induce productivity and efficiency along with safety, transparency and convenience, the workforce needs to up skill their proficiency to enable maximisation of opportunity. Bridging the gap today and preparing for a future in career of technology and analytics requires an active engagement of all stakeholders today. All kinds of knowledge centres- schools, colleges, higher education centres and corporate need to collaborate to enable learning process and skilling of the workforce both current and future as an agenda to create the workforce for tomorrow. An enabling ecosystem and infrastructure that embraces talent and credibility compared to degrees and certificates for a favourable outcome towards fitness for employment
Finally, can we say today that degrees are going to be redundant? The answer here is a mixed bag. Degrees are foundations to initiate the learning. They are building blocks to knowledge and a precursor to the choices that we make as individuals to career and job profile that we find ourselves most attracted to. So the complete disregard to degrees and formal education can never be laid to rest. But definitely there is a shift towards greater demand for new age skills. Start ups are just the examples that represent today the power of divergent thinking, opportunity capitalization and transition to a new world order. Thus, we need to explain the future generations the importance of focus to details, ability to continuously adapt and learn, be technologically savvy but above all retain a strong sense of identity and affinity to the core values. Learning should never be restricted to degrees and certificates but learning new ways of thinking and diversity should remain a lifelong endeavour. It is important for the generation today to appreciate that an important contribution remains that their initiatives should add value to the system beyond the automated machine intelligence. That’s the ‘Humanizing’ of the work for tomorrow.
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