Welcome back to our high-impact workplace skills series. We really enjoyed the conversations happening in the comments section of last week’s top skills of 2023 issue, so be sure to check those out for perspectives and insights from fellow members of our Career Chat community.

One comment that’s been on our mind came from Kendra Vivian Lewis, who asked some thoughtful questions about the comparative importance of workplace and technical skills and if there’s a way to forecast which skills will be important in the coming years. This week’s topic—analytical thinking, the number one skill on the list—is a great example as we explore both questions. Be sure to read to the end to discover a special offer that we’re running on Coursera Plus subscriptions through September 21.

What it means to think analytically

Analytical thinking involves using data to understand problems, identify potential solutions, and suggest the solution that’s most likely to have the desired impact. It’s similar to critical thinking skills, which are the skills you use to interpret information and make decisions.

In order to succeed as a strong analytical thinker, you also need to have strong technical skills in your field. Remember: technical skills describe the things you do, while workplace skills describe how you do them. So your workplace skills, used effectively, enhance your technical skills. That’s why we consider them to be high-impact—they stand to make your work more impactful than it would have been had you only used your technical skills.

To illustrate, suppose you just started a job as a data analyst for a think tank focused on climate change, and you’ve been tasked with raising community engagement in future climate action efforts.

You might start with your technical data analysis skills as you gather data from a few sources. Then, you’ll use your analytical thinking skills to determine the validity of each data source. Perhaps you’ll discard one source when you learn the research was funded by a firm with a financial stake in fossil fuel consumption. Your technical skills lead again as you clean data, and then you’ll return to your analytical thinking skills to analyze and interpret your findings, ultimately leading to your recommendation to start a transparency campaign to display water and energy use in the community.

Tell us in the comments: How do you use your analytical skills alongside your technical skills in your day-to-day work?

Why analytical skills top the list

To develop the skills list, the World Economic Forum surveyed 800+ global employers on their views of skills and jobs over the next five years, so this list is forward-looking. According to the Future of Jobs Report, employers believe analytical thinking skills will grow in importance by 72 percent in this timeframe.

The reason employers are keen to hire employees with strong analytical thinking skills is informed by trends in automation and technological advancements. While technical data analysis becomes easier with automation, reasoning and decision-making automation is advancing at a much slower pace—meaning employers anticipate that, within the next five years, we’ll have a wealth of data at our fingertips and too few people to interpret what that data means.

Where to begin

For a crash course in critical thinking, try the University of California, Davis’s Critical Thinking Skills for the Professional course. You can finish this beginner-level course in about 7 hours.

For a more comprehensive exploration into analytical thinking, try Duke University’s Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking Specialization. Over four courses, you’ll learn how to effectively argue and reason using logic.

For a technical process to guide your analytical thinking, try Google’s Data Analytics Professional Certificate. Ground your analytical thinking skills in technical know-how in this eight-course series.

Interested in multiple programs? Don’t miss this special offer!

Through September 21, we’re offering $100 off annual Coursera Plus subscriptions for new subscribers. With this offer, you’ll pay less than $25 per month for one year of access to 6,100 courses, Specializations, and Professional Certificates with flexibility to start new courses and move between programs at your pace.

This offer is a great choice if you are frequently tempted to enroll in multiple courses at once or plan to complete a Specialization or Professional Certificate within the next year. If that sounds like you, take a closer look at the offer and the Coursera Plus course catalog.

That’s all for this week! Join us next week to talk about motivation and self-awareness skills.

Welcome to the start of a brand new Career Chat series! Over these next several weeks, we’ll be discussing high-impact workplace skills and offer tips for developing yours.

Workplace skills, or human skills, describe the way you do your tasks, (as opposed to technical skills, or hard skills, which refer to your ability to do tasks). These are typically the skills that make you the kind of person that other people want to work with—your creativity, your dependability, or your strategic thinking, for example—and are the skills that stand to elevate your work to the next level.

Strong workplace skills can be the difference between a technically good report and an innovative and engaging presentation; or the difference between a serviceable project plan and a resourceful plan of action.

Some workplace skills will come naturally to you, while others may take more effort to master. In fact, you probably already know your strengths and weaknesses. Think about the type of worker you are and the type of work that feels easiest to do. Maybe you’re strategic and collaborative, but struggle with time management.

Luckily, much like technical skills, you can learn workplace skills. Which begs the question:

Which workplace skills should you learn?

Of course, one starting point is to focus on strengthening your weaknesses. Another is to consider the skills that employers are looking for in their employees.

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs Report, these 10 skills are on the rise:

You’ll notice that most of these in-demand skills are workplace skills. As technology and artificial intelligence (AI) shifts the way people use technical skills, workplace skills are becoming increasingly valuable to employers. It’s no longer enough to know how to do something; it’s important to also do it creatively, curiously, or empathetically.

Consider, for example, the number-one skill on the list: analytical thinking. Logical reasoning and decision-making are tasks that are less likely to be taken over by AI because they require strategy, reflection, and big-picture thinking. Third on the list is resilience, flexibility, and agility—another skill that humans are better positioned to harness because AI can’t quite adapt to changing conditions as gracefully as we can (at least, not yet).

Throughout this series, we’re going to take a closer look at several of these high-impact workplace skills, thinking about how they may show up in the workplace and how you can fine-tune your skills in your everyday life.

A peek at what’s to come

Learn more about the top skills of 2023, or start exploring the three most in-demand skills today:

1. Analytical thinking: Exploring and Producing Data for Business Decision Making from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2. Creative thinking: Creative Thinking: Techniques and Tools for Success from Imperial College London (this one is free!)
3. Resilience, flexibility, and agility: Positive Psychology: Resilience Skills from the University of Pennsylvania

Which workplace skills are you most eager to hone? Let us know in the comments and we’ll be sure to highlight them in this series. Next week, we’ll start at the top of the list with analytical thinking. See you then!