Who is the future employee?
OSM shared insight on skills and competencies likely to be required for the employee of tomorrow at TEDx Arendal this September.
This year, TEDs Norwegian affiliates, TEDxArendal, hosted their event titled “Shape Tomorrow” inviting OSM & the University of Agder (UiA) to spark discussions about “The Future Employee”. OSM & UiA welcomed the chance to participate and share their insight.
“As is the nature of most businesses, as trends change, so does the way in which we work” says Kayla Franey, Global Marketing Manager at OSM, speaking to her input as one of OSMs TEDx speakers.
Changing trends
Leif Skiftenes Flak, Professor of IT at UiA, brought life to Kayla’s statement when sharing UiA’s perceptions at the event. Discussing the potential impacts of driving trends including Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Machine Learning, Augmented Reality, Leif shared a respectful sentiment towards these oncoming technologies, echoing to attendees not to be in fear of the future but to understand how to make technology work for you.
Coupling these trends with the pace of innovation one can expect many changes to the work world we know of today.
“The skills needed 20 years ago may not necessarily be the same as what one needs today, versus 25 years into the future, and so on” says Hildegunn Holtan, OSMs Head of Communication, and fellow TEDx speaker.
Changing skill sets
With the increasing trend of globalization and automation employers and employees are beginning to experience working in a world with very limited boundaries. This has given birth to new requirements on both sides of the employment equation – employers must adjust their business models to thrive in a growing digital economy, while employees are looking to expand their skills into areas of the unknown.
So, what does all of this mean for the future employee? For OSM, as a people provider, that is a very important question. Determining what skills are going to be required for success can lead to better recruitment efforts and ultimately company growth.
“It’s true that at OSM it’s all about people, but further to this, it’s all about the right people,” comments Kayla on why OSM values research in such regard.
Key ingredients
“Adaptability, a value-added mindset & “being human” – to which we mean the significance of the human factor moving onward – are what we’ve identified as the critical skills required to enhance our growth oriented mindset. Recruiting and retaining employees with this nature will enable us to better manage challenging unknowns in the digital age” comments Kayla on the importance of why these skills would make a difference.