Public sector employers looking for new skills to lead teams through recovery

Posted on September 23, 2021

As times change, so does the importance employers place on particular job skills.

In a recent sampling of public-sector managers, 77.4 per cent said the post-pandemic recovery was a good time for employees to upgrade their skills to meet the rapid changes sweeping over all sectors. This mirrors the growing enthusiasm for a return to business many are calling the “new normal”.

When it comes to career advancement priorities, survey respondents showed a new preference for skills that will help employees manage this period of disruptive change and highlighted interpersonal and critical thinking over skills-based training.

Top-Rated Skills – Career Advancement

  1. Communicating Effectively with Others
  2. Managing Relationships
  3. Problem Solving
  4. Thinking Strategically
  5. Managing and Dealing with Change

The results suggest that what employers value most for the recovery are skills that enable teams and their leaders to be more agile in responding to change and think their way through what that change means for the immediate future and beyond.

One program offered by Schulich ExecEd covers all of these top-rated skills: Solving Complex Problems. Led by facilitator Stephen Friedman, this two-day program introduces a methodology for making decisions that resist easy solutions. The methodology also requires good communication and relationship management skills.

In this video, instructor Stephen Friedman shares five times he used problem-solving skills in a single week as an introduction to Solving Complex Problems. This two-day problem solving strategy program provides rapid, intuitive tools that enable executives to quickly cut to the heart of strategic and organizational decisions, focusing on areas that have the greatest impact on performance.

For more information on this program or to enrol, visit the Solving Complex Problems web page.