As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes industries and accelerates change in the workplace, the value of soft skills — or foundational skills — is rising sharply for both individuals and organizations.
A recent study featured in the Harvard Business Review makes the case. An analysis of more than 1,000 occupations and hundreds of skills — capturing 70 million job transitions between 2005 and 2019 — examined how abilities such as reading comprehension, basic math, adaptability, and teamwork shape career progression.
The results were striking: workers with a broad base of foundational skills, rather than narrow technical expertise like coding, were more likely to acquire new knowledge, move into higher-level positions, earn more, and prove resilient in the face of disruption. Foundational skills, the researchers argue, create adaptability, accelerate learning, and enable smoother navigation of organizational change — all qualities that employers consistently reward in senior roles.
“Soft skills made these workers more adaptable and gave them the grounding to adjust during transitions — a characteristic valued in higher-paying positions,” explains Moh Hosseinioun, a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and one of the study’s lead authors. He conducted the research alongside Frank Neffke of the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, Hyejin Youn of Seoul National University, and Kellogg professor Letian Zhang.
The study also underscores a sobering reality: the “shelf life” of hard skills is shrinking. Half of a worker’s technical knowledge is now estimated to become obsolete within just four years, compared with roughly a decade in the 1980s — and that window may soon contract to less than two.
Against the backdrop of massive technological shifts, including the rapid rise of generative AI, the findings highlight a clear lesson: professionals who master problem-solving, communication, and collaboration are best positioned not only to survive but to thrive in an economy defined by constant change.
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Source: HBR