What Important Work Place Skills Do You Have?

One study has shown that adaptability and critical thinking skills are seen as the two most critical workplace skills by both HR professionals and employees, according to a Society for Human Resources Management’s (SHRM) Research Department study last year about trends affecting the HR profession. 

Adaptability is being able to adjust oneself readily to different conditions.  Adaptability is flexibility, versatility, modifiability, and resilience.  Adaptability is an absolute necessity for a well-rounded employee, one who is a team player, one who is willing to do whatever is needed.  It is a quality necessary for a person to be hired.  Once we are employed, in the daily routine, we have to be flexible with our schedules, as events are rescheduled, problems come up that demand our instant attention, and work priorities change.

Also, we have to be adaptable to the changing technology—learning new programs, procedures, and systems.  We more than likely will have to learn new and upgraded computer processes throughout our years of employment.  It’s not always smooth and easy.  Even if it’s “not the way we’ve always done it,” we have to be willing to learn new processes.  And who knows, it might just be a lot more efficient! 

Change is a key to all that is happening in the work world today.  If a person is not adaptable, then they will be unable to compete in a rapidly changing, increasingly technology driven world.

Critical thinking does not mean being critical of your co-worker in the adjacent cubicle who wears unmatching clothes or has a bad haircut.  Actually, it means the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.  Another way to describe it is reasonable, reflective, responsible, and skillful thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.  A critical thinker has a sense of curiosity and is interested in finding new solutions.  A critical thinker has an attitude of desiring to avoid nonsense, to find the truth and to discover the best action.  A critical thinker cares to "get it right" to the extent possible.

In the Bible, the book of Proverbs tells us: A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps (Proverbs 14:15).  Also: It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way (Proverbs 19:2).

The world is fast moving and demands rapid thinking that is accurate and well thought out.  Knowledge based skills and social skills are essential-they enable us to more easily navigate the many levels of the rapidly moving and rapidly changing organization in a smooth, comfortable manner.

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