Though a decade-old concept, globalization still impacts the future of human capital and the future workforce. In modern days of dynamic business trends, globalization paired with the advent of future-friendly tech adoption raises a lot of concern for Talent acquisition experts to hire a reliable, skilled, people-friendly, long-retaining employee. As per the ‘Upskilling Outlook in India 2022; report, 65 percent of freshers are keen to enter the corporate world and are upskilling to bag a new career opportunity. Interestingly, another report suggests only 35 percent of employees say that their company offers training or upskilling programs. 

While these insights expose a great gap between employees and employers, Human Resources face bigger challenges when hiring the future workforce. As the nature of work shifts, the skill sets required for many jobs will change, and HR will need to find individuals who are able to adapt and learn new skills quickly, while also understanding the dynamic nature of businesses. Additionally, HRs will need to assess an individual's ability to work with technology and people of different backgrounds, domains, and skills. This will require a new approach to recruiting and hiring and a focus on providing ongoing training and development opportunities for employees for constant upskilling and reskilling to stay relevant in the industry landscape. 

Revolutionizing Hiring: A New Approach to Assessing the Future Workforce 

With so many variables involved in hiring, recruiters need help in shortlisting candidates, as they may be able to recognize a candidate's skill set via the qualifications, academic credits, and experience, but language proficiency and comprehension abilities are not easily tested. In order to equip HRs with a resolution to this paradox, Pearson India established Versant, a new-age technology assessment that is one of the faster, fairer, and most flexible ways of proving language proficiencies for work in candidates looking to gain global exposure. Versant as a test is a patented AI technology that has scored over 350 million tests and helped Fortune 500 companies recruit, train, and promote the right people for the job. It is suited for entry-level and mid-management level hiring, making it a valuable tool for HR professionals in the rapidly changing world of work. The test indicates a candidate's ability to read, listen, speak and write on modulated proficiency levels, in an unbiased and instant way. 

While, interaction skills may seem necessary and omnipotent across the corporate world, a report, ‘Workplace Communication Statistics 2022’, suggests that 86% of employees and executives cite lack of effective collaboration and communication at the workplace as the reason behind business losses and career failures. As more and more companies operate on a global scale and interact with clients and partners from different countries, the ability to communicate in a global language has always been important. Additionally, the rise of the internet and social media has made it easier for people from different parts of the world to communicate with each other, further increasing the demand for communication-proficient employees in the workplace. 

Communication Skills: The Key to Success in Emerging Professions 

By 2025, it is predicted that 85 million jobs will be disrupted as a result of automation, according to the World Economic Forum. Nevertheless, 97 million new jobs will be generated as the division of labor pivots between humans, machines, and algorithms. Many emerging professions will require strong communication skills in order to succeed. These jobs will require individuals to work with others and communicate effectively in order to achieve their goals. For example, a data scientist might need to communicate complex technical information to non-technical colleagues in order to explain their findings and recommendations, while client servicing personnel across industries need to communicate with clients and customers through various channel media such as phone, email, and social media to build relationships and foster greater engagement. In both of these cases, strong communication skills are currently essential for the success of an individual and the business. As a result, individuals with strong communication proficiency are likely to have an advantage in emerging professions over others with solely hard skills. 

The Future of Work: A Shift Toward Soft Skills and Constant Upskilling 

It may seem essential for human capital to be trained in hard skills, but that trend is soon to fade away with more adoption and focus on upskilling and reskilling employees. The necessity of soft skills, such as workplace communication will stay relevant for human capital and recruiters throughout, making the test of communication skills when hiring or applying for a job imperative. This will also come as a challenge to fast-pace and digitize the experience of assessment while keeping it accurate and user-friendly. A challenge that Pearson has readily addressed with its global learning and testing solutions. 

This is the first article in a series on learning, powered by Pearson. Through this series, we focus on the learning and development landscape and discuss trends to keep an eye on. Learn more about Pearson Versant. Click here to sign up for a demo and here to subscribe to Pearson for alerts.