New Professional Skills: Top 10 Essentials in 2024

The professional world is evolving rapidly in line with developments, even revolutions, including teleworking or artificial intelligence. In order toavoid the obsolescence of skills, it is for this reason essential to set up relevant vocational learning actions within the company. These will allow employees to acquire key skills. Every day, your teams must therefore take up the learning challenge if you want to reach your goals. To assist you in developing a learning plan for the year 2024, in this article we present to you the new skills that your employees need to develop.

The 10 new skills to develop within your company

Identifying learning needs is the first step to create an adapted learning program. By allowing your employees to train and improve on the key skills of 2024 and beyond, you are promoting their employability and preparing them for new jobs. By doing so, you improve their well-being and loyalty while increasing their productivity.

Let's discover without delay the 10 hard and soft skills to integrate into your vocational learning policy. Note that a majority of this knowledge and skills are transversal. They can therefore be used throughout the professional life of learners and according to their job assignments.

1. Mastering growth hacking

According to Sean Ellis, who theorized about growth hacking in 2010, a growth hacker is” a person whose sole objective is growth. Its actions and their effectiveness are measured in terms of their impact on stable and sustainable growth. ” (Salesforce, What is growth hacking: definition and method for managing the growth of a company, site consulted in January 2024).

In other words, growth hacking consists of test different strategies to identify growth channels and opportunities of the company. To do this, it is therefore necessary to adopt a so-called Test & Learn approach and focus your work on creativity.

The skills required to implement a growth hacking strategy include: marketing in the service of sales, the Marketing automation, but also the creation of impacting content. The sales & marketing division has every interest in developing the digital marketing and growth hacking skills of its employees.

2. Finalize a sale

Selling is not easy. Once salespeople communicate with the prospect, they must deploy inventiveness and mastery of commercial techniques in order to convince the prospect and convert him into a customer.

This requires a certain level of interpersonal skills that results in emotional intelligence that is sometimes remarkable. Of course, it is possible to develop sales skills. The latter are numerous. We can thus cite the ability to prepare a pitch, know customize the proposed solutions to adapt to each prospect, but also theconsultative approach promoting an advisory approach to the client.

If you want to increase sales volume, the sales & marketing department must offer the teams a learning path allowinglearn how to complete a sale effectively.‍

3. Develop your leadership

Being a good manager is complex. It is necessary to have a certain authority while being flexible and close to its collaborators. Especially since in recent years, team management has sometimes become difficult, as project managers and managers had to face new problems.

So, the hybrid work, the necessary consideration of inclusiveness Or the development of emotional intelligence are part of the skills that a manager must work on. By doing so, he will be able to strengthen his leadership and succeed in leading, but above all, guiding his team to achieve their goals.

To help your managers inspire your team, define a vision and teach them to communicate like a leader, we recommend that you deploy leadership learning. They are important both for the human resources department and for sales or production, because all managers or managers in your company can benefit from them.

4. Practice active listening

Active listening refers to a caring approach to communication. By striving to understand the point of view of the interlocutors and by promoting fluid communication, practitioners of active listening resolve tensions.

Facilitate exchanges and reduce tensions is as important for managers as it is for HR managers, sales representatives or customer teams. Transversal and essential competence, active listening can be integrated in a profitable way into the learning systems of many departments.

5. Mastering multicultural projects

The company is no longer a national and monoblock structure. She is diverse, complex and sometimes international. Teams from different countries work together remotely, employees have sometimes very varied cultures and the use of foreign languages is becoming the norm.

All of these elements make for multicultural projects one of the pillars of business growth. However, interculturality needs to be worked on. Indeed, not making mistakes and succeeding in overcoming everyone's differences to turn them into common strengths is sometimes a challenge.

Learn to communicate in multiple languages, know manage international projects and understand cultural specificities requires skill development. Interculturality must necessarily be part of the learning of employees from sales & marketing, communication & PR, human resources, not to mention customer service.

6. Understanding the ethics of data and AI

Personal data has long been used in marketing to target audiences and personalize marketing messages. If these actions are still possible using solutions that respect the privacy of Internet users, it is necessary to understand ethical issues. This ethic is also central to the use that can and should be made of artificial intelligence.

In order to associate company performance, user satisfaction, but also compliance with laws and regulations, your employees cannot ignore vocational learning.

Understanding and complying with regulations such as the RGPD (General Data Protection Regulation), the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) or regulations related to AI, is essential for sales & marketing, administrative & legal departments, but also finance & accounting or the IT department.

7. Deploy a CSR approach

Social and environmental issues are multiplying. Global warming, employee working conditions or health risks are all questions to consider for a modern business.

It is also an essential element for the company's brand image, because 83% of consumers expect concrete CSR commitments from businesses. So, 2 out of 3 consumers have chosen to stop buying a product in terms of its environmental impact. (Alliance, Coherence of CSR actions: a strong consumer requirement, 2023)

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The communication & PR, administrative & legal, logistics & supply chain, logistics & supply chain, finance & accounting, but also R&D or manufacturing departments are all concerned with this central issue of social and environmental responsibility. Their members need to acquire numerous skills such as the ability to develop a more sustainable economy, to taking into account the carbon impact, but also consider the necessary financial implications

8. Mastering artificial intelligence and the IOT

A few key figures are enough to take into consideration theimpact of new technologies related to artificial intelligence and the IOT (Internet of Things):

• The global market for AI software solutions was 95.6 billion in 2021. It could exceed 1847 billion by 2030. (ring-over, Marketing AI: what is it?, 2023)
• The growth rate of AI is expected to be 1400% over the next 7 years. (The makers, 46 statistics on artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024, 2023)
• For 83% of businesses, artificial intelligence is a priority in the years to come. (The makers, 46 statistics on artificial intelligence (AI) in 2024, 2023)
• In 2020, $749 billion was spent worldwide on IoT (Firstguide, Internet of Things (IoT) Statistics, Facts, and Trends in 2023, 2023)
• The global IoT network has nearly 16 billion connected devices and is expected to exceed 30 billion by 2030 (Firstguide, Internet of Things (IoT) Statistics, Facts, and Trends in 2023, 2023)

We could go on for a long time with such figures, but they strongly demonstrate the need to deploy professional learning related to AI and IoT within your company. Decision-makers and collaborators must acquire basic knowledge and skills to enable them to identify the strategic importance of these technologies

Many clusters can take advantage of these courses.. The IT & IT department as well as the R&D department of course, but also the production & manufacturing, logistics & supply chain divisions, not to mention the sales & marketing department. For example, the latter will be able to take advantage of new generative AIs such as ChatGPT to: increase team productivity and the performance of digital campaigns.

9. Cultivating diversity and inclusion

Every company must now put diversity and inclusion at the center of its concerns. This concerns both the gender parity, The integration of atypical paths, taking into account the religious and cultural diversity as well as the integration of employees with disabilities.

This point is essential for business productivity, because 75% of organizations that promote gender diversity Observe a increase in revenue by 5 to 20%. (International Labour Organization, The case for change, 2019). Let's add that according to a study carried out by Facebook, nearly 71% of consumers expect more diversity from brands in the ads. (e-marketing, Advertising: 71% of consumers expect brands to be more diverse, 2021)

In addition, promoting diversity and inclusion makes it possible to promote a fair and innovative work environment. By comparing ideas, different individuals will improve the creativity of your company. Thus, developing new skills that promote inclusion and diversity is important for the entire company. From sales, to production, through customer service or logistics, everyone is concerned by this equal treatment and representation.

10. Develop your well-being at work

60% of employees are more motivated as long as the employer takes into consideration the physical and mental well-being of employees. In addition, deploy a QWL approach (Quality of life at work) within the company allows reduce absenteeism and expenses related to health problems by 25% collaborators, but alsoincrease productivity by 12% ! (Generali Vitality, 4 figures that prove that well-being at work is a factor of productivity, site consulted in January 2024).

Taking care of employees and making them feel good in the workplace is important primarily for their health. This also allows the company to be more efficient and to attract talent.

But how do you acquire new skills that promote well-being? Be aware that there are numerous courses designed to teach employees to manage their stress, develop self-confidence, learn to balancing work and personal life, but also know better manage your time or emotions.

Finally, developing well-being at work requires a comprehensive and long-term approach. In order to help employees feel better, they need to improve their skills in areas as varied as stress management or personal organization. It is an inevitable investment, which concerns all departments, for build a pleasant work environment.

Explore all the must-have skills

As we have seen, developing employee skills through distance learning is a real opportunity. You can facilitate their professional development by promoting internal mobility and increasing employability. By developing adapted learning courses, you Also improve the productivity and resilience of your business.

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