According to a new report from the World Economic Forum, it is clear that creativity at work is going to be one of the most important and in-demand skills in the next 5 years.
In fact, it is going to be the third most important skill overall.
This comes from a new Forum report, The Future of Jobs, which took input from an extensive survey of CHROs and other senior talent and strategy executives from a total of 371 leading global employers, representing more than 13 million employees. The report asked chief human resources and strategy officers from leading global employers what the current economic and technological shifts mean, specifically for employment, skills and recruitment across industries and geographies.
Here are the Top 10 Skills in 2020 that these companies want from their employees and recruits:
- Complex Problem Solving
- Critical Thinking
- Creativity
- People Management
- Coordinating with others
- Emotional Intelligence
- Judgement and Decision Making
- Service Orientation
- Negotiation
- Cognitive Flexibility
This study backs up other surveys which show how important it will be to companies for their people to be able to think creatively. In 2010, IBM surveyed 1,500 CEOs from across the world, and they voted creativity to be their most important workplace capability to help them survive and grow.
Let us compare this list to the Top 10 Skills in 2015 the companies wanted:
- Complex Problem Solving
- Coordinating with others
- People Management
- Critical Thinking
- Negotiation
- Quality Control
- Service Orientation
- Judgement and Decision Making
- Active Listening
- Creativity
As we can see, creativity is becoming a skill which is seen as growing in value for the world’s largest corporations.
Not only that but the other top skills like Critical Thinking and Complex Problem Solving are also intricately linked to creativity and innovation, as they are all about helping the companies navigate unexpected future challenges, whatever they may be.
Fortunately, like every skill on the list, creativity is something that can be improved over time.
To find out how, make sure you subscribe to the free Idea to Value newsletter. It shows you some of the top scientifically-backed ways to build up your creative abilities and find new and successful ways to innovate.
Nick Skillicorn
Latest posts by Nick Skillicorn (see all)
- The lowest common denominator - May 7, 2021
- Podcast S5E114: Stefano Mastrogiacomo – High Impact Tools for Teams - May 6, 2021
- The story of the Vasa, the innovative ship that sunk immediately - May 5, 2021
- Join me on 18th May, for a live “Ask Me Anything” session - May 4, 2021
[…] is so imperative, as a matter of fact, that according to a new report from the World Economic Forum, it is clear that creativity at work is goin… And, only one in 10 hiring managers say their employees excel at innovation, yet 49 percent see […]
[…] ingresos por 124.000 millones de dólares, y se estima que para 2020 la creatividad será la tercera habilidad más demandada por las empresas a la hora de seleccionar a sus empleados. Con base en estos […]
I am not seeing how you created the 2020 chart from the WEF document. Can you provide the page number(s) from which you quote? Thank you!
I am not seeing it either. Creativity is one of the 6 skills in Cognitive Abilities (defined in Figure 9), which are 5th in demand (15%, thought fastest growing), as depicted by Figure 10. Based on the report, I haven’t been able to support the claim of the above article: “Leaders agree: Creativity will be 3rd most important work skill by 2020”
Hi all,
The summary of the top 10 skills needed by 2020 is actually not in the report itself, but in the published summary which came out with the report, which you can find here: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/