Ask a Futurist: The most important worker skill in the next 5 years

We all have questions about what’s next in the ever-changing world of work. By examining current trends and market signals, a workforce futurist can give you valuable insights.

Enter our Ask a Futurist series, where workforce futurist Alexandra Levit will answer pressing questions crowdsourced from Dayforce social media polls.

Let’s dive into this edition’s question and Alexandra’s answer.   

What do you think is the most important skill workers will need in the next five years?

I’m so glad our Ask a Futurist audience asked this question, because my answer will hopefully put more power and agency back into the hands of individual workers.

In the next five years, the most important thing one can do for their career is master learning agility. This means constantly acquiring new skills to keep pace with advancing technology. It’s the ability to look around corners to assess the parts of their job that could be automated and then make concrete plans to develop adjacent skills that will ensure they can still add value to the changing process.

Some workforce shifts won’t wait for a “new normal” — and HR can’t afford to, either.

Join top HR leaders and industry experts at our Coffee Collab on May 27 to unpack which changes are passing fads and which will change work forever.  

Hold a spot for me 

These concrete plans can include seeking internal training, earning a certification or microcredential, or pursuing another degree (ideally short-term, while you’re still working). Focus on skills that are modular and transferable, meaning that they build on each other and can be deployed in a variety of functions.

Many organizations are frantically looking for guidance on how to effectively integrate AI-based technologies into workflows. As a specialist in a given workflow, an employee skilled in learning agility can be on the front lines of this effort. They can help determine the tasks best suited to humans and AI, and in doing so they earn an ongoing seat at the table. They’ll know what’s coming next, and they’ll make sure they – and the other individuals involved with the process – can adapt accordingly.

It really doesn’t matter if you are a “blue collar” or “white collar” worker. It doesn’t matter if your formal education stopped in 10th grade or if you already have two advanced degrees. The days of going to school once and coasting on existing, timeless skills have come to an end. AI-based technologies are changing everything, and only those curious enough to proactively learn smarter ways to work will be well-suited to long-term employment.