Communications
Regardless of what your type and line of work is, where your (hybrid) office is located, even what sector you work in, the reality remains the same: everyone needs communication skills.
Making your point through email, Slack, or a Zoom conversation might be even harder than before or you find that the tone or meaning of messages could be misconstrued versus in an actual in-person meeting. So how do you approach this?
You can start by investing in upskilling (or reskilling for some) in interpersonal and language skills. Aside from getting your message across clearly, honing this skill minimises miscommunication and conflict while also allowing you to collaborate with both local and international colleagues effectively.
This kind of communication can be challenging at first, so it’s important to consider introducing learning courses or trainings on how to approach this and learn how to do it correctly.
Time management
Over the course of the pandemic, many have felt as though they had either gained or lost more personal time. It’s important to acknowledge that all employees’ situations and priorities differ. It’s key to get a grasp on time management skills to ensure that your employees can have a handle on both their personal and work life without going overboard and potentially impacting their mental health.
Time management skills will give employees the opportunity to quickly pivot between tasks and responsibilities as the workforce becomes more agile in the future.
Teamwork
Following the influx of hybrid working over the last year, companies are bound to face new challenges, especially in relation to the way teams collaborate.
Teamwork skills can be learned and developed like any other skill. Skills such as working with teammates that are working remotely, productive meetings, and managing expectations for example, can be both upskilled and reskilled to lead to more efficient and effective collaboration.
Resilience and flexibility
It’s not new that happy employees are more satisfied and productive, but what do professionals need to be happy and resilient? According to the PERMA model, there are five components needed to reduce stress: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and accomplishment.
Your employees need resilience and flexibility to stay engaged and happy. The good news: resilience can be trained.You can start by investing in online courses that help shape employees’ skillsets so that they feel that they are not only investing in the today version of themselves, but also their future self.
Digital skills
Hybrid working will fail if you don’t have digital skills. What kind of digital skills should be encouraged in your company? The obvious suspects are always Microsoft skills courses and others such as how to use social media to increase your business efforts.
How can you motivate those who are hesitant? You can start by having conversations with your teams about where they would like to see the future of the team going and encouraging upskilling in digital skills.
As the need to quickly embrace modern technology has further increased demand for digital talent, it has also widened an already large digital skills gap. Considering the skills gap***** was already a cause for concern before the pandemic, it's also an issue that should be a priority for businesses now.