HWZ Study: Business management professions are becoming more demanding
A new HWZ study underlines that the demand for traditional managers is likely to decrease in the future. This will require more and more employees with leadership skills. Overall, business management skills would become more demanding.
A recent study by the HWZ on behalf of the Commercial Association shows that leadership, personal and social skills are gaining in importance. The need for traditional managers will decrease. Employees with leadership skills, on the other hand, will be in greater demand than ever before. In addition, IT application skills and collaboration are becoming increasingly important for professional success. Co-author of the study is Sybille Sachs, Head of the Institute for Strategic Management HWZ.
The aim of the study "Business Management Occupational Profiles 2030" was to identify the competencies required of junior staff in lower and middle management positions in companies in the future, as well as the long-term demand for such junior staff in Switzerland, and to determine how this will change the requirements for basic commercial training, as CT graduates represent a significant proportion of the next generation in business management occupations.
Diverse competencies are in demand
In the future, the requirements for junior staff in business management professions will increase, as they will have to possess and apply a wide range of competencies. These include technical, methodological, social and personal skills.
A shift from leadership functions to leadership roles
The need for managers will decrease, but the need for employees who also have leadership skills will increase sharply, according to the study. The leadership competencies that all employees are expected to possess can relate to both professional management or temporary personnel management. There is a shift from leadership functions to leadership roles.
Sybille Sachs, co-author of the study and head of the Institute for Strategic Management HWZ:
In the future, many more employees will have to have leadership skills than was the case not long ago. They are active in different projects, take over the lead at one time and are specialists at another. This means that there is no longer just the classic manager, but the lead changes depending on the project. The roles and competencies of leadership are changing towards enabling and coaching competencies to support employees in their development and the ability to communicate a vision to employees, to inspire and motivate them. In the future, leadership will also mean orchestrating and delegating responsibility and activities.
IT skills and self-management are gaining in importance
Due to the increased use of tools and technologies, IT application skills are becoming more relevant. Job-specific commercial expertise is still in demand, but expertise will change more and more quickly in the future. Employees need to understand contexts and be able to classify knowledge.
The increasingly important social skills include the ability to work in a team and cooperate with others, as well as the ability to communicate with other employees, but also with customers or business partners. Personal skills such as self-organisation and self-reflection and dealing with change are already of great relevance at the level of basic commercial training.
Routine work falls away, problem-solving skills become more important
Digitization and automation will eliminate routine work in many cases, which is why methodological skills such as creativity, problem-solving and decision-making skills are gaining in importance. Analytical skills are also particularly necessary in order to be able to deal with complex data and recognise correlations.
Mix of learning forms for the development of competences
For the development of this competence portfolio, the study suggests a mix of learning forms consisting of (inter)disciplinarity as well as action and team orientation. The educational institutions themselves should face up to this process of change so that curricula can be made more flexible and cooperation across disciplines can be promoted. In addition, cooperation with training companies should also be strengthened for a practice-oriented learning environment. In the future, training companies are likely to appear more frequently as composite units.
