The Covid-19 pandemic has turbocharged the significance of data, AI, and digital technologies, together with their enabling human skills, and has rewarded fluid and flexible organizational structures — not to mention inclusive cultures. The world has experienced a rather sudden transition from tight labor markets, sustained growth, and scarce talent toward high job instability, growing unemployment, and worrying recessions. And those same organizations and people who, as a function of their skills composition, already appeared more future-ready and crisis-proof before the pandemic are emerging stronger from it — or at least more intact, making pre-existing inequalities even more pronounced.
Thriving in the Age of Hybrid Work
It’s not just about where you work — it’s about reimagining what your work could look like.
January 13, 2021
HBR Staff/Peter Dazeley/Mohd Azri Suratmin/EyeEm
Summary.
As we begin to emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic, hiring data is highlighting a growing demand for individuals with a more unusual or heterogeneous talent profile, such that they combine soft and hard skills hitherto not found in the same individual. If you are a Jack-of-all-trades, you can now expect to be in-demand, so long as you find a niche to apply your different skills and interests. Even if you as an individual haven’t mastered the art of developing a multi-skilled and interdisciplinary talent profile, you do have choices. The most important is to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. Instead, broaden your career horizons to expand your self-concept, reimagine your potential in the most wide-ranging and diversified way, and be open to unusual choices. There has never been a better time to keep your options open.