CAR20001: Future Work Skills Report - Swinburne University

This report, submitted by a student, explores future work skills within the context of career development. It begins by applying the happenstance theory to the student's career interests, identifying the role of self-assessment in understanding strengths and weaknesses. The report then focuses on the importance of "Novel and Adaptive Thinking" as a crucial future work skill for an operation manager, emphasizing the ability to develop innovative solutions and make effective decisions. The student reflects on their skill level using the STAR model and describes the methods and learning processes, including self-assessment and reflective learning, that will be used to improve these skills. References to relevant academic sources are included to support the analysis.

Running head: FUTURE WORK SKILLS
Future Work Skills
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1FUTURE WORK SKILLS
Career developmental theory
Career development theories talk about the different paths to achieve desired careers
and how one must develop their skills and capabilities in order to succeed in life. The career
developmental theories also explain how certain qualities and competencies makes a person
better fit for certain jobs. The happenstance theory by Krumboltz (2009) argues that the
selection process of an individual’s career need not be planned beforehand. Through different
career based activities and exercises one can understand the strengths and weaknesses that
they have and are more likely to choose careers that are more suitable to them. There are four
propositions made by the author that ascertain the career counselling and development. The
theory is based on the idea that career destiny of people cannot be predicted beforehand and
career development should not be matching the career requirements with personal
characteristics. Through the analysis of my interests and reactions to the exercises that I took,
I believe that the job of an operation manager would be most suitable for me.
Future work skills
Through my understanding of the developmental stage and my present target career, I
believe that I will need to develop Novel and Adaptive Thinking. This skill will help me in
thinking about innovative solutions to problems that arise in workplace and create responses
that go far beyond the set rules of the organization. This skill enhances my critical thinking
and decision making capabilities that is needed for successfully managing the operations of
an organization (Davies, Fidler & Gorbis, 2011). Decision making has many pitfalls. Most of
the times, necessary information are not available and we are influenced by our biases.
Developing this skill will enable me to avoid those biases and take effective decisions.
Problem solving skills will help me in finding out viable solutions to problems and manage
people in critical situations. This ability also gives me the ability to manage conflict.

2FUTURE WORK SKILLS
The STAR model is based on situation, task, action and result. Using this strategic
model, I have found that my skill in the aforementioned skill is limited (Fidler, 2016). In
situations that called for my novel and adaptive thinking skills, like in workplace when the
deadline of a project was preponed, I could not come up with innovative solution to save the
project or manage the clients properly. This led to a loss of the project for the company and
an unsatisfied client.
Methods and learnings
The methods and learning process that I will apply are self-assessment and learning
through reflection. Self-assessments will help me in identifying my strengths and
weaknesses. I will be able to work on them and convert my weaknesses to strengths.
Reflective learning will help me in assimilating my theoretical and practical knowledge so
that I am able to learn from my experiences as well. I also want to gather practical work
experiences that will give me first hand understanding and insight into the work that I will be
doing in future. For soft skill development I would prefer communicating with peers and
feedbacks (Yoke & Ngang, 2017).

3FUTURE WORK SKILLS
References
Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). Future Work Skills 2020. Institute for the Future.
http://www.iftf.org/futureworkskills/
Fidler, D. (2016). Future Work Skills: Update and Review. Institute for the Future.
http://www.iftf.org/futureskills/
Krumboltz, J. D. (2009). The happenstance learning theory. Journal of Career
Assessment, 17(2), 135-154. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072708328861
Yoke, T. C., & Ngang, T. K. (2017). A study on soft skill development among final year
diploma in business studies students. MOJEM: Malaysian Online Journal of
Educational Management, 3(2), 32-50.