In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of people job-hopping. One of the reasons for it is, lack of growth opportunities in their organization. Skill development is not only useful to increase the organization’s efficiency but also a useful way to drive retention. Many of the employees would prefer staying in their current organization, provided it invests in their careers. While understanding the development needs of an employee, you should recognize the fact that no employee enters the organization as a perfectly formed staff.

As the organization grows you must ensure that your employees are also evolving at the same rate. For eg, in this digital age, if your employees are not technically skilled, then it can drive your organization in a negative direction. Let us now look at some skill development areas.

Soft skills development areas

Our future is becoming increasingly digitized and automated, one thing is clear from it, soft skills development will be vital for employees even in the future. As they say, a robot can do, not lead. Some of the key soft skills are as follows.

Creativity: Creativity is out-of-the-box thinking and sometimes requires bad ideas to be brought to the table. For true creativity to happen, employees must feel safe and heard. Sometimes the idea may not work out as planned, but the process of trial and error will surely reward the organization with a brilliant idea someday.

Emotional intelligence: Emotional intelligence is a crucial ability that determines success in negotiation, sales, and networking. As most organizations are being automated, emotional intelligence remains a vital skill. If your company needs future leaders then start developing emotional intelligence within your workforce at the earliest.

Collaboration: This is the ability to work with others, share ideas, optimize processes, and find ways to bring innovation, as a team. As humans, this is our greatest skill. There are several workshops available to increase the efficiency of collaboration within an organization.

Conflict management: Workplace conflicts are common in most organizations, but if it goes uncontrolled then it can severely damage the organization. A leader needs to be skilled at conflict resolution to avoid future problems. For this, good soft skills are necessary.

Time management: Effective time management means greater productivity and lesser burnt-out staff. Good time management is the mantra for a smooth functioning organization. Developing it starts with training employees on the company’s tools and resources available at their disposal. Many organizations are also taking assistance from L&D companies to implement effective time management within their organization.

Hard skills development areas

Skills directly related to a person’s job role which are functional by nature are known as hard skills. These are important at any time and age. Since the future is all about technology, it would be wise to develop technical skills. Some of these skills are as follows.

Cloud computing
Artificial intelligence
Analytical Reasoning
UX Design
IoT (Internet of Things)

It would be in the interest of organizations to develop their employees in both soft and hard skills. Since an incompetent workforce can be a company’s greatest liability and a competent workforce can be a