AI, Adaptability, Creativity, Blockchain, and Affiliate Marketing, Randstad RiseSmart's latest Survey reveals the five tops skills that will be in demand in 2021. Among them, Artificial Intelligence (AI) tops the chart. It was found that 77% of companies that offer skilling, make it available to all of their employees which likely means employers in India recognize how rapidly the world of work and job market are evolving and, as a result, are embracing skilling. 

As businesses seek to give their users an enhanced experience, technology and predictive tools are playing a critical role in enabling the same. To this extent, AI has emerged as one of the hottest skills to have, and its demand is only set to increase as technology adoption continues. Being a highly scientific field, employees seeking to upskill in this area have taken on a pragmatic approach that translates knowledge into real-world skills and helps them develop capabilities to create data sets, build machine learning models, and use Python and/or R programming to deliver measurable results. 

Further, adaptability, the next most in demand skill for the post-pandemic era highlights the importance of being able to adapt to changing situations with ease. Having the right know-how and being able to adapt to changing trends, destabilization, industry shifts can make all the difference to how a business functions today, and hence will see a strong demand from employers. Creativity, as a skill, is also highly in demand, as organizations look at building teams which can help them turn failirues into opportunities to learn, improve, and rethink. Blockchain has been in demand for a long time. With the pandemic the demand for blockchain technologies in daily operations has also increased. Within this space, employers have laid emphasis on identifying and recruiting talent with a strong knowledge of understanding cryptography, distributed computing, security and consensus algorithms. Hence, blockchain also emerges as a top skill employers are looking for. Lastly, with large-scale unrest and uncertainty in the market, trust between consumers and brands is at an all-time low. In order to remedy this, affiliate marketing is an important skill today. Being an affiliate marketer involves constantly ideating to solve problems and bring in solutions that will restore customer’s faith in brands. From research and analytics, to planning and executing well-crafted campaigns that deliver measurable results, affiliate marketing has a lot of potential to change the face of the sales game. 

Over the last year, several conversations have been kick-started around the need for upskilling and reskilling. All the organizations are trying to focus on identifying skills in demand, building impactful skilling solutions, and enabling their people to be ready to excel even amidst uncertainity.