Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work

By Marco Dondi, Julia Klier , Frédéric Panier, and Jörg Schubert

Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/defining-the-skills-citizens-will-need-in-the-future-world-of-work

To future-proof citizens’ ability to work, they will require new skills—but which ones? A survey of 18,000 people in 15 countries suggests those that governments may wish to prioritize.

Ensure affordability of lifelong education

Most children around the world have access to primary and secondary schooling, but not all of it is of high quality, and early education for the very young—the best age at which to develop certain mindsets and attitudes—is unaffordable for most people in most countries. In addition, very few countries have worked out a system to provide affordable access to quality adult training.

Hence, just as the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century drove an expansion of access to education, today’s technological revolution should drive further expansion to ensure universal, high-quality, affordable access to education from early childhood to retirement and to ensure that curricula include the DELTAs that will future-proof citizens’ skills in the world of work.

Defining foundational skills for citizens

Some work will, of course, be specialized. But in a labor market that is more automated, digital, and dynamic, all citizens will benefit from having a set of foundational skills that help them fulfill the following three criteria, no matter the sector in which they work or their occupation:

• add value beyond what can be done by automated systems and intelligent machines

• operate in a digital environment

• continually adapt to new ways of working and new occupations

We used academic research and McKinsey’s experience in adult training to define what these foundational skills might be (Exhibit 1). We started from four broad skill categories—cognitive, digital, interpersonal, and self-leadership—then identified 13 separate skill groups belonging to those categories. Communication and mental flexibility are two skill groups that belong to the cognitive category, for example, while teamwork effectiveness belongs to the interpersonal category.

Looking for still more precision, we identified 56 distinct elements of talent (DELTAs) that fall within these skills groups. We call them DELTAs, rather than skills, because they are a mix of skills and attitudes. “Adaptability” and “coping with uncertainty” are attitudes, for example.

To ascertain proficiency levels, we defined a desirable level of proficiency in each of the 56 DELTAs, then devised a psychometric questionnaire to assess respondents’ proficiency against this bar. Eighteen thousand people from 15 countries completed the online questionnaire and were given a score on a scale of 0 to 100 for each DELTA (see the sidebar “Example: Evaluating proficiency levels for DELTAs”).

The results showed respondents’ proficiency was lowest in two skill groups in the digital category—software use and development and understanding digital systems. Proficiency in the skill groups for communication and planning and ways of working—both in the cognitive category—was also lower than average (Exhibit 2).