Review your job description and list your major responsibilities. Project out 5 years to assess the skills and experiences you’ll need to be at the top of your performance. A revolution is occurring within technology and the transformational changes within industries. A modest effort to keep your skills and experiences up to date may not be enough. You need to reinvent yourself to become a leader in your field of expertise.
Expanding experiences or improving skills at a slow rate are enough to hold your place in career advancement. The economy, work challenges and the competitive marketplace are moving too fast for a “place sitter”. New systems, remote work groups, and a longer working career makes the concept of a one company occupation an outdated reality. Smart workers have learned that if their companies aren’t providing adequate training their career advancement will depend upon their moving to another organization. There they can learn new skills, hone their experiences and move up the career ladder faster.
The World Economic Forum (the Dovas Agenda) states that in 2020 the global workforce lost an equivalent of 255 million full-time jobs. Plus an estimated $3.7 trillion in wages and 4.4% of global GDP. In the U.S. job losses in 2020 were the worst since 1939. It’s projected that 97 million new roles will emerge over the next decade. The recent recovery has been upward, but uneven and tilted to certain functions. Skill sets that have been rewarded are in technology and remote work.
Over 50% of companies say that new skills are needed in the future, but less than 15% have implemented a skills-based talent pool. Companies will be bringing talent in from the outside, poaching from competitors and those who have the experiences to move the organization forward. Larger companies are spending millions of dollars training their internal talent. But even then, it’s not enough.
By 2025, 50% of all employees will require new skills and different kinds of experiences to just stay in place. Those that cannot or will not adapt to the new normal will become irrelevant. Those employees will move down the economic and career ladder.
Reinventing yourself is not that hard. It means you need to do some research. Find out where the trends are going in your field of expertise. Put a simple plan together. Plan for a time-line to either catch-up to the marketplace or move ahead of the skills and experiences that will be needed within the next 5 years. The effort now will be easier than it will be in a year or two.
The actions you take now will carry you further up your career track and will pay off over time. Inaction has consequences.
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