Future workspace would integrate emotional intelligence, new skills mix

In a rapidly changing world and times, employers are searching for a new mix of skills that would enable their organisations stay nimble, responsive and resilient; some of these skills call for a large dose of emotional intelligence untaught in schools.

Some of the drivers of these changes include new technologies, which are enabling workplace innovations such as remote working, co-working spaces and teleconferencing. Organisations are likely to have an ever-smaller pool of core full-time employees for fixed functions, backed up by colleagues in other countries and external consultants and contractors for specific projects.

The other driver, by no means the only one is that the world’s economic centre of gravity is shifting towards the emerging world. By 2030, Asia is projected to account for 66 percent of the global middle-class and for 59 percent of middle-class consumption and close to 90 of the necessary job creation would take place in the developing world, primarily in Africa and Asia, given that this is where the projected needs will be most pronounced.

“For jobs of all kinds, at all levels, on average, emotional intelligence is twice as important as cognitive ability in terms of the distinguishing competencies. The higher you go in the organisation, the more it matters” wrote Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, which has sold over five million copies.

He added “If you look at top leadership positions, C-suite positions, you will see that 80 to 90 percent, sometimes 100 percent, of the competencies that organisations independently have determined are the ones that set their star leaders apart are based on emotional intelligence”.

Southward of the corporate ladder and away from C-Suites, employees are under pressure to continually learn and adapt to evolving and emerging industries. As technology further reshapes business needs, both individuals and countries will have to address on-going skills gaps. Traditional education is often badly equipped to develop dynamic skills in students and most schools and universities are teaching a 20th-century education to young people who will need cutting-edge 21st-century skills.

This is an issue that calls for long-term commitment to reform from successive generations of political leaders. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that more than 61 million jobs have been lost since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008, leaving more than 200 million people unemployed globally.

Nearly 500 million new jobs will need to be created by 2020 to provide opportunities to those currently unemployed and to the young people who are projected to join the workforce over the next few years.

At the same time, many industries are facing difficulty hiring qualified staff. One 2015 survey found that, globally, 38 percent of all employers are reporting difficulty filling jobs, a two-percentage point rise from 2014.

Prakash Kanth, director, OLAM Nigeria Limited, during the CEOs Forum organised by BusinessDay in 2016 expressed dissatisfaction regarding the quality of graduates churned out by tertiary institutions of education in Nigeria. “We spend enormous sums of money in retraining graduates who come applying for positions with us. The educational system needs urgent overhaul.”

OLAM employs approximately 3,500 staff spread throughout the country and about 23, 000 employees across 70 countries, engaged in managing value chain activities of origination, processing, marketing and distribution.

To resolve this challenge, the World Economic Forum, an international organisation committed to improving the state of the world through public-private cooperation recommended a reconnecting of education to employment

Employers need to collaborate with schools and universities on the development of curricula and a shared practical knowledge of the market. The education system also needs to change to allow a focus on lifelong learning.

Better forecasting of industry and labour-market trends is vital to allow governments, businesses and individuals to react quickly to change. Big data is likely to prove pivotal in developing more accurate predictions of where the jobs market is moving and where the skills shortages are expected to lie.

While there has been impressive progress in improving access to education, the quality and relevance of learning has rarely been improved on any scale. At the same time, government policy has lagged behind when it comes to skilling the national workforce. Education and labour policy need to be re-examined to make them more reactive and relevant to the ever-changing market realities.

STEPHEN ONYEKWELU