The labor market is rapidly changing, and a modern employer is increasingly demanding from a job applicant not specific skills but a whole range of competencies that will guarantee his flexibility, adaptability, and product awareness. In addition, the labor market continues to be seriously affected by the globalizing economy and the work of corporations that value horizontal relationships, teamwork, honesty, and innovative thinking. Realities show that employers need conscious specialists with exceptional and developed skills they can apply in different circumstances.
These competencies include critical thinking, decision-making, problem-solving, leadership, and many others. Employees with such competencies, as a rule, are more responsible and independent but not arrogant (Finegold & Notabartolo, 2010). They communicate well with colleagues and partners, making a product successfully and positively influencing the work team and the atmosphere. Employers can refuse a good employee with developed skills if the latter negatively impacts the team or shows a complete inability to fit into the existing order. Thus, employees’ communication skills, honesty, sincerity, and ability to work in a team become essential for HR managers and bosses. What a few decades ago seemed to be an exclusively personal circumstance that affects building relationships with friends is now a critical work competency.
A developed set of competencies shows not only education and the ability to adapt to changing environments but also interest and personal motivation. Hiring employees with personal motivation is always more profitable than hiring an employee who is demotivated or indifferent, even if they have a good education or work experience in a prestigious company. That is why, during interviews, HRs are guided by personal questions and psychological aspects of work. HR needs to know the human attitude toward finances, bosses, and productivity. Through such questions, a portrait of a person gradually emerges: what he likes to do, how he sees himself now and in the future, what he requires of himself and how developed goals he has.
There is a problematic question of creativity in the work environment, which experts, sociologists, and psychologists have looked at differently for half a decade. The original invention model was based on predetermined genius and the absence of genius in most people a priori (Amabile, 2020). It forced managers to be in a constant ghostly search for geniuses. These searches are often unsuccessful, and teamwork patterns have shifted towards creating a productive atmosphere rather than reducing triumph to the work and ideas of just one or two people. The modern model of creativity postulates a situational approach, the meaning of which lies in the importance of the conditions around people. It is with the right conditions that people can work creatively. It can manifest itself in preschools for children and the most popular companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, and Walmart.
The most crucial obstacle to creativity is the desire to meet expectations, which grows out of the existing rewards for work and the dictation of conditions. Tip and dictation make workers feel the need not for an innovative product but the need to adapt to expectations. An investor, boss, or client has the desired result, so employees strive to meet it. Failure to meet this result is equated to a poorly completed task. Thus the product loses its individuality, creativity, and uniqueness, as it is only a gray reflection and an attempt to guess other people’s preferences.
The modern labor market is suspicious of developing complex competencies rather than single skills. Such competencies show the sincere interest of the employee, his severe attitude, and motivation and guarantee flexibility in unforeseen circumstances. Creativity requirements can often be placed on employees, but these requirements destroy creative thinking. To create a creative atmosphere, curiosity, a keen interest in the topic of work, and an intellectual environment are necessary.
References
Amabile, T. M. (2020). How your work environment influences your creativity? Greater Good. Web.
Finegold, D., & Notabartolo, A. S. (2010). 21st century competencies and their impact: An interdisciplinary literature review. William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Web.