10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace
intro
The year 2020 changed work as we knew it: the transition to online working, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has affected many sectors, with companies quickly adapting to more connected and global ways of collaborating. Which skills will matter the most in this new context? We put together a list of core competencies with tips and (several free) online courses to get you up to speed.

By Livia Formisani

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Ace
Ace Videoconferencing. Online meetings are here to stay, so we all have to learn to master them. Speak clearly and not too fast, keep your posture straight, avoid wearing busy patterns (they’re not video-friendly), and make sure you know how to share a programme (not your screen) and record a meeting on different platforms. Here’s a free online course from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Reading
Improve Your Reading Skills. Until there’s a way to download information right into one’s brain, good, thorough reading skills will always be paramount. When was the last time you read a novel or a long-form article? How difficult was it to stay focused, and how long did it take? Try replacing some of the social media scrolling with more focused, quality reading time.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Visualisation
Boost Your Data Visualisation Capabilities. Create meaningful graphs and overviews to get and offer insights – no matter what you do. Then, use them to make your presentations memorable. Edward Tufte’s classic on the topic, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, is a great resource for learning from the Yale professor who hates PowerPoint. He also offers an online course.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
team
Work As A Team. We don’t use ‘teamwork’ as a buzzword, we mean it: Leave fear and competition outside the office door. Projects are becoming more complex, and workers are increasingly specialised. We can only move forward by collaborating, and we predict that soon, competitive colleagues will be the ones to be singled out – in a bad way.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Code
Learn To Code. We hear you – this one isn’t easy. But you don’t need to become a developer overnight. From writing your own Excel macros to retrieving data with Python, you can selectively learn the coding you need to automate repetitive tasks, so you can use your time and energy for more important things. Here’s a free Python course on YouTube.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Listen
Be A Good Listener. Don’t be that person who’s only waiting for their turn to speak. There is so much information you can absorb by simply listening: to what is said, of course, but also to how it’s said. Plus, you never really know what the other person is going to say – what comes next may surprise you. It can be as easy focusing on active listening, but if you’d like to polish your skills, Udemy offers a number of useful online courses.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Graphic
Pick Up Graphic Design. Word processors are a thing of the past – we are now used to beautiful layouts, even in internal reports. Graphic design programmes offer many more fonts than a basic text programme, and allow you to control more aspects of your documents (spacing, kerning, margins, etc.). There are also free online tools offering ready-made templates, like Canva.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Meditate
Meditate. Yes, it is also good for the workplace. But do it, first and foremost, for yourself: Meditation helps with anxiety, reduces your stress levels, and helps you make more conscious decisions by adopting a mindful attitude. You’ll be a better professional as a natural consequence. (Read more about the benefits of meditation.)

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
UX
Brush Up On User Experience Design. We are constantly bombarded with online content, so we need to quickly evaluate information. Learning about best practices in user experience design will allow you to prioritise the online display of information and get your message across. Once a skill for web designers, in the era of online working it is now becoming valuable for professionals across many industries. Here are a few free options on Coursera.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace.
Language
Learn A New Language. The world is becoming increasingly globalised, but learning a new language is still a great way to boost your resume, while coming to understand a different culture in a deeper, more complete way. Better yet, it will teach you to think differently and be more flexible – skills which will serve you in any job throughout your career.

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10 Essential Skills For The New Workplace

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