The Future Of Work: 10 Skills You Will Need To Be Successful

Jen Cohen Crompton
With all the predictions about the future of
work, we are constantly painting a picture of
how the future workplace will look. But, what
most of us should focus on is what the
workforce will need to look like – meaning,
what skills employees need to have to ensure
continued success into the next decade?
The Top 10 Online Colleges website has the
answer. They’ve done the research and
compiled a list of skills that all employees will
need by 2020 (which is only six years away!)
and the drivers of the new skill set.
First, we must understand what is driving
change and molding the future of work.
The six key drivers of change include:
1. Extreme longevity: People are living
longer.
2. The rise of smart machines and systems:
Tech will augment and extend our own
capabilities.
3. Computational world: There will be an
increase in sensors and processing that
will make the world a programmable
system.
4. New media ecology: There will be new
communication tools that will require
media literacies beyond text.
5. Superstructured organizations: Social
technologies will drive new forms of
production and value creation.
6. Globally connected world: Diversity and
adaptability will be at the center of
operations.
Because of these global changes and
technology being the catalyst for many of
these forces, the future work skills we will all
need in 2020 are a combination of changing
how we act and think, and how we use
technology as an extension of our daily lives –
even more than we do today.
So what are the skills you should be working
on today to ensure you’ll have a job tomorrow?
They include:
1. Sense making
2. Social intelligence
3. Novel and adaptive thinking
4. Cross-cultural competency
5. Computational thinking
6. New media literacy
7. Transdisciplinary
8. Design mindset
9. Cognitive load management
10. Virtual collaboration

Read more about how each drive relates to

the skill and what that skill really means in the

below infographic.