Think technical skills will solely empower your future workforce? Think again!
Okay, technical skills are cool. But have you heard about transferable skills that make everything fall in place? Yes, there’s something about these competencies—growth-centered and dynamic, and always focused on the results. Whether it’s a team conflict, or a siloed work system, they come to the rescue, arrange resources, talk to people, and make outcomes happen.
And one thing is for sure. Companies are going crazy for these!
That’s evident with World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Reports, 2025 that discovered, transferable skills like creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, & agility, curiosity, and lifelong learning will continue to rise between 2025-2030 along with technology-related skills.
So, what should be your next move?
Worry not, we have got your covered! In the recent episode of our thought leadership podcast, The CHRO Mindset Season 3, Rajiv Naithani, a visionary HR, delved into why prioritizing transferable skills and human oversight are crucial for a collaborative workplace and how can you turn it into a possibility.
So, HR professionals, this one is for you. Ready to take notes?
Transferable Skills Required for the Future of the Workforce
Transferable skills are non-specific in nature, and you can apply them across various job roles, industries, and profiles. Communication, collaboration, leadership, problem-solving, and emotional resilience are some of the powerful transferable skills that minimize friction and maintain high ops efficiency.
And you know what, the future of the workforce and management depends on them like lungs on air as they break silos, fuel collaboration, and make interaction effortless, turning workplace conflicts into opportunities that boost profitability.
And you know what, LinkedIn vouches for that!
In its 2019 Global Talent Trends Report, 92% of talent professionals and hiring managers admitted that candidates with soft skills are increasingly important. Why? Because they ensure judgments are human, and decisions are people focused, creating a diverse and inclusive work environment.
Transferable skills have become a uniquely valuable investment for businesses. Yes, just like you focus on ping pong tables and coffee machines at the office to keep a cheerful culture, you need to turn your head toward these skills to streamline potential and maintain inclusivity—eventually driving more positivity.
Transferable skills that boost the future of the workforce:
- Communication
- Tech fluency
- Leadership
- Team Collaboration
- Creativity & innovation
- Time management
- Problem solving
- Emotional intelligence
- Critical thinking
Whether navigating industrial challenges, strategic initiatives or sudden crises, these skills empower the future of the workforce, resolving challenges effortlessly and strategically.
Now that you know you have the workforce to train and the will to kick start today, how will you achieve that?
Worry not! We have compiled 4 super-strategies you can implement in your workplace right away.
Four Ways to Nurture Transferable Skills for a Strong Future of the Workforce
The year 2025 is halfway through. And the next year will teem with more challenges and competition—staying untrained in facilitating situations won’t be any less intimidating than walking on eggshells.
But hey, check out these 4 ways that’ll turn your workforce into a resilient army.
Design collaborative roles: Find the people one who crush the silos
With a more competitive era ahead, do you think there’ll be a place for rigid roles that flaunt limitations and suppress accountability for outcomes? No.
Future startups and enterprises aren’t ready for that. And that’s why people with coordinating and problem-solving will be valued more than people with tech-related skills.
Do you know why?
Because regardless of how much technical talent you hire, if they’re not willing to work together, your hiring and training costs are drained and out of the system—leading to a financial downturn. And no business—startup or enterprise anticipates that.
So, what can you do about it? You can identify collaborators and peacemakers in your workforce to act as facilitators and maintain smoothness in processes. Like how HR Business Partners align people’s strategy with business needs while working across various functions. Such ad-hoc roles make the workplace a conducive spot to breed innovation and teamwork in the long run.
Additionally, from the beginning, you can focus on JDs with shared responsibilities, hiring candidates who can naturally collaborate on similar roles and exchange knowledge. Or you can organize collaborative weeks to allow employees to learn new skills from the team they closely work with.
The outcome: Collaborative roles help optimize campaigns, avoid conflicts, and quicken outcome delivery.
Build internal marketplace: Reflect at your existing talent
Some of the top talent is found in-house. And moving them across departments can do wonders. Why? Because they are aware of the workplace culture, the operations, and the entire system. Letting your employees walk out the door is an intellectual loss, but moving/promoting talent internally improves retention, preserves tacit knowledge, and reduces turnover.
Internal talent movement builds your company’s credibility, spreading the word in the market for you as a stable organization, giving you an edge over your rivals.
How? Where your competitors might be losing their valuable talent to their competitors, with an exposed business strategy, you have yours secured.
That’s why giving internal marketplaces the importance they deserve is a win-win move for your company.
The outcome: Building an internal marketplace saves hiring costs, promotes upskilling, and builds employee advocacy.
Organize workshops: Provide them the environment
High-energy workshops are great spots to brainstorm ideas, find solutions, build skills, learn new perspectives, zoom out to see the bigger picture, and build a resilient future of the workforce.
They build peer relations, bring more inclusivity, and create a receptive environment for collaboration that communicates in the language of problem-solving.
Real-world Buzz: Did you attend ‘Design Thinking for HR Innovation’ by IDEO and SHRM, that was in the buzz for its high-energy and fast-paced collaboration. During the workshop, prototypes on onboarding, hybrid culture, and mental awareness were built and shared. Many of the HR attendees reported feeling re-energized about HR’s creative potential. Many implemented mini versions of their prototypes after the workshop.
The outcome: Workshops encourage peer-learning, improve in-person interaction, and build self-confidence
Build cross-functional teams: Bringing the best brains together
Cross-functional teams are super-effective when your goal is to identify the core problem, detect gaps and find perfect solutions everyone agrees on. When a team with multiple perspectives comes into play—working together, finding clarity in chaos, and delivering closures before deadlines become effortless.
And what’s more interesting to know is that during the course of resolving challenges, the members undergo the process of communication that articulates, negotiation that sees solutions, empathy that cares for all, and assertiveness that delivers. And the result? a deep introspection and detailed profiling of one’s own strengths and weaknesses.
The outcome: Cross-functionality helps in considering different POVs from diverse employees coming from various backgrounds, making a workplace highly inclusive and respectable.
Unilever’s Strategy to Empower Future of the Workforce: A Compelling Case Study
Unilever’s convincing case of strategic transformation is your reminder how at times deep, aka transferable skills can be more powerful than tech-based skills.
Being an FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods) and with approximately 150+K employees globally, Unilever faced rapid digital transformation and a shift in business priorities. At Unilever, traditional job-roles were rigid, teams were siloed, and talent mismatches were prevalent.
It eventually pushed for a need to move talent internally, upskilling them, and focusing more on retention than hiring from outside. Basically, doing the magic with all they had. And then a solution popped up.
Unilever partnered with an AI-platform, Gloat to launch an internal talent marketplace FLEX that allowed employees to:
- Showcase their underutilized strengths
- Matched their skills, talent, and abilities with relevant projects and gigs
- Encouraged hands-on experience by engaging in cross-functional responsibilities.
For example, people with project management skills in the supply chain were assigned marketing sprints and finance experts with data analytics skills were selected for digital transformation initiatives.
The initiatives created big impacts like:
- 8 out of 10 projects roles were filled internally,
- Employees stayed engaged and gained skills that helped them
- Improved retention and employee satisfaction
- Reduced external hiring costs
- More agile and future-ready workforce
With these small initiatives, Unilever identified hidden talent, prioritized learning, and built a workplace where growth was not defined by titles but skills.