15th July was World youth Skills Day. The importance of Skills has increased, especialy with recent pandemic and of course the Digital world is also posing new opportunites for youths. But is that the case?

A recent survey by Mckinsey done across 15 countries and 18k people, identified 56 foundational skills for future of work. These skills have been categorised across 4 segments & 13 Sub segments viz.

a. Cognitive (Critical Thinking, Planning & Ways of working, Communication, Mental Flexibility)
b. Interpersonal (Mobilizing systems, Developing relationships, Teamwork effectiveness)
c. Self Leadership (Self Awareness and Self Management, Entrepreneurship, Goal Achievement)
d. Digital (Digital Fluency and Citizenship, Software use and Devt, Understanding Digital Systems)

The survey then goes on to identify Top 10 Skills needed for Employment, High Income and Job Satisfaction. It also identifies Top 10 skills with Highest correlation to education and 10 Skills with lowest correlation to education.

The revelation is the fact that, it is mostly softer, managerial & leadership skills like Adaptibility, Handling Uncertainity, Work Plan Development, Organisation awareness, Self Motivation, Self Confidence, Achivement orientation, Asking Right Questions etc, that are most important for Employment, High Income & Job Satisfaction. Just Digital Colloboration, Smart Systems, Programming Literacy features amongst digital skills here.

Also, in regards to corelation with education, it appears that our education is more focussed on Digital Skills like Digital Literacy, Programming Literacy, Data Analytics & Stats etc. Though some non digital skills also feature here.

But non digital skills like Creativity, Story Telling, Synthesizing messages, Empathy, Courage, Risk Taking etc. have less correlation with education, implying we need to focus more on these as professionals.

Coincidentally, my recent book "3F: Future Fintech Framework" also emphasises and enables skills like Story telling, Innovation, Colloboration and prepares your professionally with frameworks and insights for the future Fintech & Digital World.

Read the complete report from McKinsey at https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/defining-the-skills-citizens-will-need-in-the-future-world-of-work#