View Point : Challenges of the Professional of the future

Gone are the days when professionals across industries are treated like persons holding just a degree certificate and do what is been told to do. In the recent times, our environment has been greatly influenced by information technology, availability of tools and advanced technologies. Our dependency on technology has been increased. Our life style has been affected. Our life is empty without emails, internet browsing and our pet cell phones. In these times where market dynamics change very rapidly, we all face challenges and especially in creative and knowledge driven industries such as IT, one needs to live by ‘Professionalism’. Given the fact that future will see more demand for skills, there will be challenges faced by all the professionals.

Challenges of the Professional of the future:

Following are the challenges of the future professionals.

a) Maintaining Good Health:
First and foremost – “Health is Wealth”. Keeping the body and soul “FIT and FINE” will be the most important challenge. If we have good health, we can perform better, we can enjoy things around us. Professionals in future need to be health but not money conscious.

b) Retaining, Upgrading Knowledge and Skills:
In the knowledge driven industries such as IT, KPO, Manufacturing etc domain expertise plays a key role. One must have required business process knowledge along with minimum IT skills. Professionals have to continuously learn new skills & upgrade their domain knowledge in order to meet market demands. Upgrading timely knowledge will be a key challenge as one has to gather information from multiple sources. Having right skills & knowledge will help organization build subject matter expertise and help customers solve their business problem.

c) Exhibit Work Ethics at Work:
Good work ethics such as right attitude, positive outlook, punctuality, sincerity, good behavior towards colleagues, respecting all, cooperation & communication with team members etc are very important to become a successful professional. These ethics will continue to be there in future also. Challenge will be to exhibit these qualities in a global & competitive work environment.

d) Display Leadership Skills:
Leadership skills will be the key in shaping up & driving the team towards common vision. Leadership skills coupled with ‘lead by example’ attitude will help the organizations to fulfill their objectives. Future professionals will see challenge of nurturing subordinates, motivate them, guide them & mentor them to climb up next ladder. Future leaders would need to build ‘Thought leaders’ within the organization.

e) Uphold Integrity:
Future professionals will see challenge of upholding the integrity of the organization. They need to abide by the policies & procedures laid by the corporate. Future professionals need to ensure that company’s confidential information is not compromised with outsiders. Just to give an example – if we are working on customer project whose data is very confidential & poses competitive threat, then, as professionals, we need to uphold the data integrity and make sure the confidential information is not leaked or compromised with outsiders.

f) Create & Promote Healthy Work Culture:
Creating positive & healthy work culture not only attracts new talents but also allows people to give their best. Creating & promoting healthy work culture will be key challenge going forward in order to groom new talents & retain them. Building open-minded, friendly and participative work culture will not only builds brand but also helps to bring out best outcome. It helps to be more productive at work. Organizations can promote healthy work culture through cultural programs.

g) Adapting to Multi Culture Environment:
Knowledge driven industries have opened up market for professionals to work in a global, competitive and heterogeneous work culture. Adapting to multi work culture will be the key. Understanding the culture, people and language along with mixing up with people will be very challenging. We need to understand one thing – no culture or language is good or bad. We need to respect every language, culture and attempt to understand the importance.

h) Effective Communication:
Communication is the key and will be key challenging area in future too for professionals. Various channels such as e-mail, blogs, magazines and other mediums will play vital role in effective communication.

i) Display True ‘Professionalism’:
Display true ‘Professionalism’ involves not mixing up personal matters with professional matters, being fair to everyone & not biased towards certain things. It also involves professional communication with each other such as email etiquette etc.Future professionals will have to work towards building up professional work culture.


Conclusion:
Rapidly changing environment, availability of resourceful information, quicker decision making, light speed communication and technological innovations have really changed the way we think, live and conduct business transactions. In future, there will be potential challenges for people in creative and knowledge driven industries. Market conditions and demand for skilled labors will make work environment intellectually challenging. With growing business needs, future will see lot of opportunities for professionals.

Future professionals need to be smarter and equally good at managing people and their emotions. Being a professional by look and attitude is very important as it builds healthy environment around the organization. As people work in a cross cultural global environment, being professional is the need of the hour. Adapting quickly to changing environment and continuously learning new skills will also be a key challenge. Future market demand will surely throw up professional challenges in handling people and situations. It is up to professionals to bravely face the challenge and accomplish the given task with true ‘Professionalism’.