Generic Skills Generating Thrust

What could be more encompassing for self-management, adaptability, sustainability, and innovation than this VUCA* world, which we are living in now? September 2019 was thought to be like any other month, taken for granted to come and end, but it was not an ending. It was a beginning to something that has left the world’s health and economy crippled. The outbreak of a virus in China, as we first heard it in the news that month, was thought a problem to be quickly and locally solved. We had no clue that it would extend on such a global scale until the present day.

It is October 2020, and the entire world is still fighting- even the battles of reopening by the strongest governments were defeated to masks, more social distancing, and increasing GPD loss. Most of the corporations and SMEs were also defeated, laying off and furloughing thousands of employees. Children, who spend hours every day in schools, cognitively, and socially growing, had no option, but to learn through screens or socially distanced small groups.

Mustering efforts to combat such unprecedented times from senior leadership, workers, to families, has proven to be a complex situation. Various factors were needed to intervene, so that loss would still be handled, and opportunities revived. COVID has triggered such a necessity, and despite the daunting conditions that the world is going through, many have succeeded in creating new opportunities. While many others have only learned to survive the hardships, instead of collapsing, persevering until they find the first new opportunity and start climbing that ladder towards a more relieving future.

Thinking outside the box has incredibly helped many people and organizations to strive for innovative solutions, as they dug into their skill wells in an attempt to pull out a dormant ability, and transfer it, if they had to, to a different domain. The bottom line was to aggressively utilize any skill, that can save a business or a family.

These transferable skills, known as generic skills, can be transferred from a domain to another, depending on the need and the aspiration to move forward. These skills generate ideas, suggestions, and methods to create something or redesign something. Apart from specific skills, or field skills, that are taught in schools and universities as fixed, rigid subjects and applied to specific fields or disciplines, generic skills can be learned through learning environments, in schools, universities, homes, coaching sessions, and other sporadic experiences. It all depends on paying attention to them and never isolating them from learning and growing. A car cannot move with wheels only. It needs an inner system that interacts to ignite the engine and create thrust. That is when the wheels become useful. It also needs a driver, that outer system, to operate it, without which, it remains a steel, lifeless thing- no more than a vehicle.

There is an immense demand from businesses, including education, to have a workforce, that can communicate effectively and objectively, think critically in surprising situations, be flexible and resilient, find practical solutions to problems, innovate, and contribute to the growth of the institutions.

There is even a more immense demand from governments to have a workforce, that can sustain all forms of institutions, maintaining thus a stable economic growth, or even better, a flourishing economic growth, if they could allocate their assets.

The last two decades made these generic skills the key principles, within which the Vocational Education and Training VET frameworks operated. Many ministries of labor and education around the world have been researching and restructuring those skills to potentially meet the labor markets.

Our world, that has been labeled as a global village, rotates around the need to understand cultures and exchange knowledge and learning. Cross-cultural metacognition is key in this new context of work experiences.

Even some accreditation processes, such as the Association Collegiate Schools of Business AACSB, includes such skills in its evaluations. It states in one of its standards that “cultural diversity among employees and customers” poses challenges upon institutions, referring to cross-cultural skills in this diverse world.

However, the Debris?

How can generic skills or competencies be fully utilized so they are not wasted or neglected?

1. Identifying generic skills: These skills, as per the explanation above, are general and open-ended, considering the quick growth of the labor market and its ever-emerging needs. As occupational competencies, if they are not being identified in congruence to the fields respectively, then the fields cannot benefit from them.

2. Compatibility: The new trends in digitalization and occupations are putting certain jobs to an end and paving the way for new ones. Lacking a workforce, that is equipped with the skills for these new roles, of which generic skills are core, will have unpleasant results. COVID-19 and its dramatic impact on health, economy, and education, resulting in a colossal recession, which will most likely beat the 2008 Great Recession, will require a different set of skills (See picture), added to the pressing needs of the 21st century even before this crisis.

3. Evaluating generic skills: The rapid growth of the labor market and its demands are in flux. Therefore, there can be no static format or context, which may fully bridge gaps between the supply and the demand. Some institutions raise wages to meet this lack of skilled workers at the point of need, but this remains incomplete. That is why continuous evaluation of these generic skills guarantees intervention, and therefore, satisfaction. Research communities and accreditation agencies can play a vital role in this process, which must be data-driven. Gathering feedback within a broad cycle is tremendously helpful to adapt to the emerging needs of the community.

4. Conflicts with universities: Most universities around the world endorse academia and believe that other courses that do not vividly relate to that, not only dissipate academic time, but may also be a threat. With the emerging calls to initiate more material about these transferrable skills and some universities neglecting the calls for time and effort constraints, many future employees exit from those academic environments with an immense lack of adaptation in the real-world. Although the move towards including some courses in universities that relate to these skills, such as team coordination, communication, and making judgments and decisions has long started at the beginning of this 21st century, the efforts done are still tremendously insufficient. Many institutions still resist nonacademic material.

5. Community Involvement: If labor markets do not study at a hands-on level the skills truly needed for their efficiency in terms of operations and results, and revisit the sets of skills requested by the entire community, the academic and the social, then these generic skills remain isolated, undeveloped, or unfulfilled.

6. Experimenting: Fixating generic skills can paralyze the growth process. It is important to observe these skills within oneself and others, self-experiment, and expand accordingly.

Generic skills have always been ingrained in cultures, but the urge was not as opportunistic as it is now in the 21st century. The increase in their intensity, variations, and aspects is reinforcing its essence as transversal. These skills encompass different subjects and disciplines. They are life-learning skills, that can be used in every job and role.

Without proper awareness of our perspectives, assumptions, and the overall value of growing cultures and economies, generic skills will remain inefficient. Reshaping education, including higher education, and onboarding practices are intently our only anchor at this age of uncertainty.

*VUCA : Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity