The top 20 essential skills for success
Liggy Webb, a best-selling ‘life skills’ author and founder of The Learning Architect, has identified 20 key skills that employees need to be effective, to face the challenging demands of modern working life. The list, which includes resilience, forms the cornerstone of a new Life Skills training portfolio designed to support a 21st century workforce.
“The modern workforce is faced with an increasing list of ‘essential’ skills. What are they and how can L&D professionals help their workers to achieve them all?”
Based on research using the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) model and her work with The Learning Architect, Liggy has distilled these ‘essential skills’ into a Top 20 checklist that employers need to address in order to create a happy and successful workforce:
- Change ability
- Communication
- Conflict resolution
- Creativity
- Decision making
- Empathy
- Feedback
- Goal setting
- Healthy living
- Life balance
- Impact & influencing
- Positive thinking
- Problem solving
- Relationship Building
- Relaxation
- Resilience
- Self confidence
- Stress management
- Time management
- Value & purpose
To meet a growing need for support in developing life skills, seven years ago Liggy founded The Learning Architect – a unique consortium of behavioural skills specialists who have researched and designed a comprehensive training portfolio to support workforce development. The group aims to raise awareness of the need for these core skills and offers employers practical training so that staff can cope better with the demands of an increasingly stressful society. Once a month Liggy and The Learning Architect provide taster sessions in modern life skills training, to showcase what’s on offer. On 6th March 2014 the taster session will focus specifically on Resilience.
Liggy Webb points out: “According to the World Health Organization, depression will be the second biggest cause of illness worldwide by 2020, while mixed anxiety and depression is the most common mental health disorder reported in Britain. In other words depression and stress-related illness is on the rise. Despite employers having clear moral and legal duties, not enough is being done.”
“These are shocking statistics. Every employer has a duty of care to its staff - to help them to face the challenges of modern working life. There doesn’t have to be a problem already before employers do something about it. Equipping staff with skills in resilience, for example, means they’ll deal better with change. Prevention in this case really is better than cure.”
Information about free taster sessions in modern life skills is available on The Learning Architect’s events page of its website.