Stephanie Vozza, from Fast Company, recently wrote an article where she names and describes the 8 skills people will need to remain competitive in 2016. The truth is that companies are looking for people with an adequate combination of hard and soft skills, which tend to change constantly. So, for 2016, according to Vozza the most demanded skills in 2016 will be.

Three of these skills are linked to social, cultural and generational diversity:

Diverse environment management

Managing diversity provides a company competitive advantages (wider pool of talent, more and different ideas and perspectives). In order to do this, understanding and managing diversity are key requirements considering that there are currently several generations, with their own perspectives, ideas and motivations, co-existing at the workplace. Managers must handle different communication and management styles.

Cultural Agility

Knowledge of other cultures includes tolerance of ambiguity, perspective taking, resilience, and humility. Developing cultural agility is an active process requiring social learning in a novel context with opportunities to practice new culturally appropriate behaviors, make some mistakes, receive feedback, and question one’s own assumptions.

Global Mind-set

In today’s business climate, it’s increasingly crucial to have an understanding of the political and societal impacts on business across multiple countries. Almost any company can do business worldwide and employ talent all over the globe. The fastest-growing economies are in Asia and South America, and a key skill will be knowing how to market, sell, and communicate in these global markets.

The remaining five skills are linked to different areas, such as communication, learning, analytics and strategies.

Effective conflict resolution

Companies are placing more emphasis on team members who can work well with others, address issues as they arise, and mitigate major conflicts.  The key is non-violent communication, which consists on finding the right words to express ideas, thoughts and conflicts.

Willingness to learn

Flexibility and openness to learn something new, knowing that you will always be adding new skills.

The ability to successfully outsource

Companies need to be able to effectively hire and manage outside talent. This means that employees responsible for outsourcing a process or a project need to be capable of describing what they want in a clear and concise way. A good idea is to divide the project into stages and provide checkpoints, as they enable you to find out in advance if there are any potential problems and correct them.

Strong communication skills

Good communication skills are critical to advance in your professional career. Communicating complex ideas in an effective way is key and is complementary to having good hard skills.

 Understanding analytics

Analytics are extremely useful as they can help a business gain relevant information, develop projections and increase revenues. Therefore, been able to read and understand analytics is a very important skill that people must acquire.

To read the full article of Fast Company, click here.