Professional skills for the future: What Swiss Professionals Focus on
In the view of Swiss professionals, the willingness to learn new things is the most important skill for success in the working world of tomorrow. Communication skills and a willingness to perform are also crucial future competencies. This is the result of a new representative study.
On behalf of XING Switzerland, the market and opinion research company Marketagent.com surveyed 500 working people in German-speaking Switzerland on the subject of professional skills for the working world of tomorrow. The most important results were recently presented.
Willingness to learn new things is one of the most important future competencies
Swiss professionals were asked, among other things, which skills they consider particularly important in relation to the future world of work. The top five are:
- Willingness to learn new things
- Communication skills
- Readiness to perform
- Adaptability
- Ability to work with a variety of people
The results show that respondents already feel personally well prepared for most of these skills. Only in the case of communication skills was there a clear gap between importance and personal preparedness, according to the study.
Employer with room for improvement
The respondents are not quite as optimistic about their own employer: just under half of those surveyed (48 percent) think their company is well prepared for the changes in the world of work. A third (35 percent) see their own company as partially prepared and 17 percent believe their employer is poorly prepared for the change in the world of work.
According to the survey, employers also have room for improvement when it comes to the quality of continuing education: Only around half (55 percent) of employees are satisfied with the training and continuing education programs offered by their own company. Another quarter (24 percent) are partially satisfied and 21 percent are dissatisfied.
Continuing education: Preferably on site and in person
Home office, pandemic and virtualization notwithstanding: face-to-face instruction at fixed times during the week is the most popular continuing education format. 30 percent prefer this variant, while 29 percent would prefer a mix of face-to-face and digital instruction. Offerings in the form of time-independent online courses would be the first choice for 25 percent of respondents, while online training at fixed times, e.g. live webinars, are only most popular with just 5 percent.
There are significant differences between the sexes. While time-independent online courses are most popular among women (32 percent), men clearly prefer face-to-face courses at fixed times (36 percent).
Men are more willing to finance continuing education themselves
When it comes to acquiring professional skills for the future, just over a quarter of respondents would be prepared to pay for the relevant training themselves. A further 41 percent would be prepared to invest in appropriate training to some extent, and 30 percent cannot imagine digging into their own pockets. Among men, the willingness to finance training related to future competencies themselves is higher than among women.
Sources: New Work SE / XING
