Six vital work skills for today’s digital workplace

Between Google, Amazon, Netflix, and Chat GPT, you’d be hard-pushed to avoid Artificial Intelligence (AI) in today’s digital world. Evolving at a constantly accelerating pace, it’s impossible to predict how much impact this powerful technology will have on our professional lives in the future. But that shouldn’t stop us from preparing for likely possibilities.

If you embrace AI to help with some of your work tasks – and make a point of improving your digital skill set – you’ll be well positioned for success as technology developments continue to gain momentum. So says the Fast Company and here are the six key skills it recommends you start working on today:

1. Digital literacy. The ability to work effectively with established and emerging technology tools is a must. So keep abreast of developments, find out how your colleagues interact with technology to achieve their goals, and make time to experiment.
2. Data literacy. The quality of the insights delivered by AI depends on the quality of the source data. If you understand what AI needs to serve up meaningful intelligence, that’s a valuable skill. So check out free online courses on statistical analysis, data visualisation, and data interpretation to boost your data skills.
3. AI-related threat awareness and evasion. Lack of transparency, bias, deep-faked videos, and privacy concerns are just some of the AI-related threats that could cost you and your business dearly. Protect yourself by developing your AI and cybersecurity threat detection and avoidance skills.
4. Critical thinking. Bots like Chat GPT have serious limitations. The quality of the information they deliver depends on the quality of the information they trawl. They can’t differentiate between wild conjecture on social media and proven facts drawn from reliable sources. Solid critical thinking is required to spot information gaps, inaccuracies, and biases. In other words, we need to understand what information to double-check.
5. Creativity. AI doesn’t come up with new ideas. It simply connects information that’s already available to deliver what might look like an original idea. Only humans are capable of being creative so this is a skill you should work on to increase your value in the workplace.
6. Curiosity. Our appetite to learn more about the world around us is another uniquely human trait. Make a point of constantly questioning things and seeking out new information to feed and drive this valuable human trait.

By developing the above skills, you can combine the speed and power unleashed by AI with our uniquely valuable skills as humans – critical thinking, creativity, and curiosity. Your skill set will, as a result, become more valuable for today, for tomorrow, and for the long term.

Are there any skills that you would like to add to Fast Company’s list? We think interpersonal and communication skills deserve a spot. No bot in the world can have a good catch-up at the water cooler on a Monday morning or inspire your team to greatness. At least not yet…

For more advice on how to future-proof your career – or to fast-track your search for brilliant job opportunities – please get in touch. ABL Recruitment is the UK’s number one multilingual recruitment agency and we’re here to help. Based on over 30 years of experience and longstanding relationships with 400+ leading companies worldwide, we will quickly find you great-fit roles that tick all the boxes. Please contact us at info@ablrecruitment.com or on 020 7092 3911 to brainstorm the options today!