Job Skills You Need to Succeed During the Pandemic

It has been approximately 4 months since a large part of the world has been sequestered to their homes to work remotely and as safely as possible. But the work environment and process has changed drastically in the last few months. While some of us have become accustomed to working remotely, some others are still struggling to adopt new processes, routines, timings, and responsibilities. In this new way of working there are a few important job skills to succeed during the pandemic.

But there might be job skills you already possess that just need a little extra attention to mould into the requirements of today. While there are possibly some other skills that you need to develop to be able to take on this new work environment.

Skills You Possibly Already Have

Communication

As a senior manager or a senior leader, you already have superior communication skills. You need to adapt those skills to the current situation, which calls for remote verbal communication rather than face-to-face communication. It also calls for a lot more written communication. Because of a lack of in-person communication where you could read your team’s non-verbal communication, you need to focus on your listening skills. Engage with your team through video calls as much as possible. But also include conversations over the phone and via email or text. Also, pay more attention to what is being said and communicated through any of these mediums because it’s easy to lose something in translation when you are not sharing the same space. This is also one of the primary job skills to succeed during the pandemic.

Self-motivation

Self-motivation is an essential skill for all professionals, especially senior executives. As a senior leader you need to be driven and motivated without someone having to push you. And in hindsight, it is easy to stay motivated in an office. The environment, the processes, the routine, all help in putting you ‘in the zone’ and ready to dedicate your day to work. Working from home changes all that. There is no work environment and definitely no routine. Here is when you need to work on tuning in to your motivation. It’s already there, you just need to help it during a challenging time. So find what motivates you in your home. It could be a dedicated work space, a strict routine that caters to work and home, a daily exercise routine, or maybe even changing into work attire in the morning. You need to find your motivation because your behavior will impact the rest of your team.

Being a team-player

As a senior leader, you know exactly what entails being a team-player. Teamwork, of course, is another must-have skill for any job. But now when the whole team is working remotely, the kind of teamwork required is different. So you’ll need to work on your teamwork skills. Communication is key here. Make sure all the team members have the chance to voice their opinions on a particular issue. Even if not everyone agrees with every opinion. It’s more important now, than ever, to engage the team so that they come together and feel like a team even though everyone is sequestered. Also pick a few communication platforms that work best for your team. Remote working during this time might also mean an increasingly multicultural team. You need to learn to engage well with team mates from different backgrounds to make sure everyone feels like they’re part of the team.

Problem-solving

Again, as a senior executive, you already possess effective problem-solving skills. Chances are, you will have adequate experience in identifying and solving problems during projects you have worked on in your career. During the current climate, your skills will need an upgrade. While you still need to identify and resolve issues, the kind of issues will be vastly different, and the signs of those issues will also be different. You’ll have to relearn what constitutes an issue and find resolutions accordingly.

Skills You Need to Develop

Work independently

In an office space, you might be accustomed to work with a team, often sharing responsibilities or at the very least, you might have depended on them for quick approvals and to run things by them before you finalized something. Now you might not have that luxury for every single project. You will need to learn to work confidently by yourself in many situations. You might not always get the support you want, unless you ask for it. So you’ll need to prepare mentally and also become resourceful for the future of work. This is one of the important job skills to succeed during the pandemic.

Organization

This is extremely important. The remote working environment is very different from the office environment. Most offices are conducive to productive work days. While the home is quite the opposite. And if this is your first time working from home then you will have trouble with finding a space to work out of, since typically we don’t have a dedicated home office space. You will struggle with distractions, such as daily chores, cooking, children, other family members’ routines, and more. You’ll need to learn how to manage your time and organize your day effectively. All of this requires you to be highly organized with your office work. Whether that means finding a new routine for how you tackle work or how to organize and delegate work to others. It’s important to learn how to either integrate or segregate office and home so that you can work smoothly.

Digital fluency

It’s no secret that we have all started using Zoom and Trello or Slack a lot more than we did before. Previous work processes didn’t require this dependency on digital tools. Companies are employing digital processes and platforms to better manage the team that’s spread out and working from various locations. So now you will need to start learning and get comfortable with digital tools faster. These will definitely include video conferencing tools, but it could also include, project management tools, project tracking and sharing tools, team building tools, etc. You might also need to understand how to fix minor problems in your laptop or computer since you don’t have an IT team on hand to solve them for you.

Work-life balance

This might be the most challenging yet. It’s already been established that our work environment has changed significantly. And maybe it has changed for good. It’s essential for you to find that seemingly elusive balance between work life and home life. This could mean many things. Either your work and home life are integrated and you switch back and forth between the two to manage both sides. It could also mean you follow the routine you’re accustomed to and work for 9 to 5 while home life and errands fall outside this time bracket. Whatever your preferred routine might be, you need to find a balance between the two to be able to sustain this lifestyle without burning out.

We are all going through a trying time and it is essential to understand the challenges we’re facing. But it is also essential to understand the skills we already possess that we can leverage so that we have a head start, and on the other hand, the areas where we can improve, so that we can prepare ourselves accordingly.

Summary

Q. How can you adapt your existing communication skills for the current times?

A. Currently, there is a need for more remote verbal communication and written communication rather than face-to-face communication. It is important to focus on listening skills and engage the team through video calls and other modes of communication as much as possible.

Q. Why is it important to upgrade your digital skills?

A. Companies are employing digital processes and platforms to better manage the team that’s spread out and working from various locations. So now you will need to learn and get comfortable with digital tools since that is the only way to communicate.