As part of SGUnited Jobs and Skills, SkillsFuture Singapore partnered RSM to share about skills that can improve employability, career switch, and career advancement during this challenging period.  

 

During this webinar, held on 18 August 2020, our panellists shared with the attendees about critical soft skills they must acquire to survive and even thrive. The key paradigm to survival is to keep an open and agile mind.

 

Acquire Critical Soft Skills

The panel singled out five essential soft skills:

  1. Technology Savvy
  2. Business Savvy
  3. Mindset Change
  4. People Engagement (Empathy)
  5. Curiosity

 

As the world digitises, especially in this post COVID-19 world where companies are leveraging technology to improve work efficiency, to be technology savvy is no longer a choice in most sectors, including the finance sector. However, the degree of being technology savvy can be tuned. For example you do not need to be an expert in Zoom or Microsoft Teams to hold a meeting, learning the basics will suffice.

 

Being business savvy in current day’s context means the ability to create “better value and positive service experiences with your colleagues and clients, whilst staying relevant to your stakeholders.” The pertinent question to ask is: “Are you creating better value in your scope of work and through your deliverables?” A change in mindset is, therefore, necessary.

 

This leads to people engagement skill using empathy especially in the current situation we are in. Empathy is about “understanding people, being able to sense people’s emotions (…) and connecting the hearts as well as the mind (…).” It is a critical component in the process of communication. Lastly, curiosity or learning agility is about seeking out growth by learning, and finding out more about a new skill.  A person will do well if he has a learning mindset.

 

Even finance professionals in the industrial and manufacturing sectors need to be agile, flexible and quick to make changes to processes as the industry moves into Industry 4.0. Adaptability to new innovations such as robotics and automations, and managing dashboards to monitor inputs and outputs of the manufacturing processes are also important skills. In short, one has to have the “openness to learn new technology (…) and upskill to keep one relevant in this new era.”  

 

Finance – a Well-Needed Component  

Finance is a very critical and needed aspect in every industry. There are, therefore, lots of opportunities out there in the market for new entrants. All it takes is a paradigm shift to be willing to explore what are available and upgrade one’s skills.

 

To round it up, we must acquire soft skills in order to excel in this new economy regardless of the industry you are in; even so if you are a jobseeker. And now is the time to acquire them to embark on an exciting career and thrive in it.