How does education best support young people to prepare for their future work lives? And what skills are needed to become workplace-ready – especially in a world that will be increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence?
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF, 2020) these skills include non-verbal communication, “deep empathy”, growth management (coaching), mind management (counselling skills), and creativity.
So alongside the technical and digital skills required for the future workplace, there is seemingly a significant requirement for a range of wider skills.
However, the recent Beyond Academic Learning survey from the OECD (2021) showed that these “social-emotional skills” actually decline during the teenage years. It appears that the average 10-year-old has up to 30% better social and emotional skills than the average 15-year-old.
And students from lower social-economic groups measure lowest across every skill measured.
Meanwhile, the NFER, with funding from the Nuffield Foundation, has launched a research project entitled the Skills Imperative 2035. So far, they have identified “essential employment skills” for future employment, including a number of social-emotional skills such as creativity, critical thinking, team-work, problem-solving and resilience.
Some countries are now moving to incorporate these skills into their curriculum. In Northern Ireland, for example, compulsory components to be studied at key stage 4 now include “communication”, “working with others”, “self-management” and “problem-solving”.
So how might education in other countries, including England, start to deliver effectively on these critical skills?
One answer is to teach them more overtly when delivering career education content, including around year 9 options, year 11 and 13 transitions, work experience preparation, and other things such as interview preparation. As such, which skills might we prioritise and how might students practise these skills?
Effective communication: This might include speaking formally and giving presentations, conveying your ideas clearly, and active listening.
- Exercise: Role-play a work setting and practise using polite and formal communication and expressions while also avoiding slang, jargon or over-familiar language.
- Exercise: Practise responding to emails. Provide examples of emails from work colleagues as well as customers. This will enable students to practise choice of language and tone, determined by who they are responding to and the context of the email.
Respect: The importance of valuing and respecting other people’s contributions.
- Exercise: Students focus on giving their full attention to others during conversations. When they wish to talk, they are polite and courteous – showing that they can value diverse opinions and perspectives. Use partner talk activities to practise. Each person is given a set time to speak while their partner practises actively listening. Then, reverse roles. Finally allow them to have a dialogue where they are encouraged to build on one another’s initial comments.
Team-work, collaboration and managing conflict: Required in most careers. Being able to collaborate as well as manage conflict will make you a great asset, as will being able to play an effective role with in group to achieve a common goal.
- Exercise: Collaborate with others (not in your immediate friendship group) from diverse backgrounds or with those who have different views then share and build upon each other’s ideas.
- Exercise: Practise being a team-player and invite others to share their thoughts and ideas. Foster an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and heard.
- Exercise: Put yourself in the shoes of everyone involved to better understand their feelings and motivations. Then identify shared goals or interests to find areas of agreement.
Time-management: Being aware of your own time management will allow you to deliver a task on time.
- Exercise: Managing my own time so I don’t disappoint myself or others. Try making a to-do list of jobs that need to be done then putting them in order of importance and urgency.
Adaptability: Often stated as the most important skill in a jobs market that is constantly evolving. Developing a growth mindset where you are willing to change thoughts and behaviours is a great skill to possess. Being able to adapt thinking and communication to achieve positive outcomes is key.
- Exercise: When practising interviews, use techniques such as “feed-forward” to help students consider what they might do differently next time to improve their overall performance.
- Exercise: Demonstrate that you can be flexible to different approaches and at times choose other people’s way of doing things, even if you believe that yours is the best. You never know!
Perseverance and self-confidence: Helps an employee to navigate changes in their careers or chosen sector. It requires a self-confidence or trust in one’s own ability to do a job well.
- Exercise: Make a list of achievements and then acknowledge and celebrate each success.
- Exercise: Practise taking an overall goal and then creating a series of smaller goals that can be broken into manageable tasks. Celebrate each task to help maintain levels of engagement.
Note, both these exercises can take place each lesson regardless of topic. Ask students to break up the lesson goal(s) into a list of tasks or mini-goals to complete. Then plan for reflection breaks throughout the lesson (mini-plenaries) to check on progress to date and celebrate any tasks completed.
Critical thinking and creativity: Increasingly valued in the workplace. They enable you to think outside the box and to come up with innovative but evidenced solutions. It is about being able to see things in different ways to find solutions to problems.
- Exercise: Provide examples of work-based problems, such as a customer compliant. Ask students to work together using a critical approach to find solutions.
- Step 1: Identify the problem.
- Step 2: Collect information on the problem – capturing data from different perspectives.
- Step 3: Ask questions to check your understanding of the problem – being aware of any biases you may have.
- Step 4: Discuss possible solutions – accept all ideas – however wild they may appear.
- Step 5: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each solution.
- Step 6: Determine the most effective solution – as a team.
- Exercise: Ask students to keep a daily journal of thoughts and ideas. There are several phone apps that help with journaling but using a notepad and pen is just as good. Write anything including drawings or doodles – even questions (and answers) – whatever feels best. This approach is often said to ignite creativity.
Self-awareness and empathy: Needed to build positive relationships with colleagues and clients. This emotional intelligence may also be used to widen networks which will support any future career changes. At the heart of empathy is understanding the thoughts and feelings of others and considering their points of view.
- Exercise: Students can reflect on their character traits, including strengths and growth areas. Encourage them to identify their strengths and seek opportunities for growth in areas that require further development. Help them to become open to constructive feedback. This approach will ultimately support them to gain a growth mindset – something that will help them navigate all aspects of their life better.
- Exercise: Encourage students to share their own experiences to show that they understand what a peer is saying. For example, while reflecting on how easy or difficult they find a task, students can practise using phrases such as “I understand how you feel” or “That must have been challenging”.
- Dr Leila Khouja Walker has more than 25 years’ experience in the education sector as a practitioner, policy advisor, and learning technologist consultant. Leila is co-founder of Persona Education. She is also a senior lecturer in education and childhood at the University of the West of England. Leila has worked with hundreds of schools worldwide to support their effective delivery of social-emotional learning. Follow Leila on X (Twitter) @walker_leila and find her previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/dr-leila-khouja-walker/
Further information & resources
- NFER: The Skills Imperative 2035: www.nfer.ac.uk/key-topics-expertise/education-to-employment/the-skills-imperative-2035/
- OECD: Beyond academic learning, 2021: http://tinyurl.com/256m7xj7
- WEF: These 6 skills cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence, 2020: www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/these-6-skills-cannot-be-replicated-by-artificial-intelligence