10 Top Soft Skills for 2020: What They Are and How To Train Them

The Davos Forum, also known as the World Economic Forum, is held every year in Switzerland to discuss and analyze the main issues of international concern. This meeting is attended by the most important leaders worldwide.

This year, topics of special interest to Gamelearn have been addressed in Davos, and they have to do with key competencies and skills that companies will demand in 2020. Our serious games cover the “top 10” prepared by the experts:

Businessmen, politicians, journalists, religious leaders, entrepreneurs, representatives of non-governmental organizations, intellectuals, ambassadors, etc. There are many personalities taking place in this annual meeting, and this year they all have agreed on one thing: we must beat machines in the only thing they can never be better at than us as human beings: soft skills.

The list of the prestigious Forum predicts the skills that will be most demanded in jobs in 2020. It sounds very far in the future, but there are only four years to go. These skills are precisely those guaranteed by Gamelearn with its serious games Merchants, Triskelion and Pacific. Three games for corporate training and the development of three skills (negotiation, productivity, and leadership) that make up a much wider skills map than that on the cover. We will tell you why.

1. Decision-making and solving of complex problems

In the Davos ranking, efficiency-related skills are predominant. There are, for example, “analysis and decision-making” or “solving of complex problems.” Both skills are highly valued in our daily work because one of the basic needs of businesses today and tomorrow is to improve decision-making processes.

By doing this, organizations are looking to reduce stress, increase productivity and, incidentally, reduce the workload of employees so that they can focus on those tasks which are actually important to reach goals.

This approach to effectiveness is the driving force of Triskelion, the serious game on personal productivity and time management. This program seeks to improve the ability to make decisions and manage daily tasks as efficiently as possible, learning to prioritize and regain balance and control over our lives.

2. People management, coordination with others and service orientation

The ten “top” competencies are logically related. They are skills that complement each other. Consider the following for a moment: people management, coordination with others and service orientation.

Three “skills” that also result in efficiency habits, as they contribute to the improvement of decision-making processes and interaction with all members of a team within an organizational structure.

People management and “team management”, skills that can be developed by playing Pacific, promote habits to understand, analyze and ultimately make better decisions. The basis for the successful development of these skills is to establish meaningful goals and know how to explain to people what is expected of them. And give them the necessary tools to accomplish it.

3. Emotional intelligence, creativity, and negotiation

With Merchants and Pacific, for example, users learn to reflect. Before solving a problem, it is necessary to identify what is happening and why it has happened. Emotional intelligence is a skill that helps us manage the interaction with members of our team, to empathize and solve conflicts.

Promoting creativity during a negotiation allows to identify and generate alternatives, propose solutions, visualize the achievements that can be reached, etc… All of these are skills that can only be acquired through practice in a real environment – with risk – or a simulated one – risk-free -.

4. Cognitive flexibility, critical thinking

The sought-after ability to adapt to change is one of the skills appearing in the Davos list through cognitive flexibility. This ability, along with the development of critical thinking, is key to the survival of any company in the future, because it is about adaptation to an ever-changing reality. It is about knowing how to make the most effective decisions according to the circumstances.

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The “top 10” of Davos show the good health of Gamelearn, whose methodology combines three key points: quality content, practical approach, and gamification techniques. The three simulators (Merchants, Triskelion and Pacific), and the future serious games on which the development team of the company is already working, set the course of state-of-the-art training.