7 Power Skills in Demand for 2026 and How You Can Help Your Employees Develop Them

Key takeaways

The term “power skills,” a modern rebranding of workplace skills, refers to skills that help employees interact well in the workplace.

• Examples of power skills include leadership, resilience, communication, curiosity, enthusiasm, and creative thinking.

• Investing in employees with strong power skills can improve company culture, increase productivity, and create greater customer satisfaction.

• You can provide training and other opportunities for upskilling, such as mentoring, tailored professional development plans, e-learning, and lectures, to help your employees improve their power skills or gain new ones.

Discover in-demand power skills and explore how they benefit both employees and organizations. If you’re ready to help your team develop power skills, explore Coursera for Business and its expert-led courses, tailored learning paths, and AI tools designed to drive workforce growth

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What are power skills?

The term “power skills” is another name for workplace, or human, skills. These are the skills that help employees better interact with others and the work environment. Certainly, your employees need to have the technical skills to do their jobs and must have the knowledge, education, and experience to back them up. However, rather than focusing only on whether a candidate can, for example, operate a computer, speak a foreign language, or write copy as was common in the past, you might now look for employees who communicate well, which is now so essential that it’s considered a prerequisite skill and often not listed as a requirement. 

The term “power skills” is considered a modern rebranding of workplace skills that, when combined with technical skills, are essential for efficiently running your organization. In fact, power skills may be more critical now than ever, and helping your employees develop and sharpen them can benefit your organization.

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Power skills vs. technical skills

Technical skills are those that your employees can learn through training and education that apply directly to their job. Power skills focus on how employees interact with their environment and the people in it, and they typically apply to almost any job. These power skills can take longer to acquire and require more practice than technical skills. While you can take a course and learn how to use a particular type of software, you likely need some real-world experience to learn how to solve problems or make good decisions. These are skills employees develop over time through various experiences.

Examples of power (human) skills include:

• Creativity

• Critical thinking

• Teamwork

• Empathy

• Time management

• Communication

• Decision-making

• Leadership

Examples of technical skills include:

• Video production

• Copywriting 

• Project management 

• Foreign languages 

• Graphic design

• Data entry 

• Search engine optimization (SEO)

• Carpentry

How employees with strong power skills benefit an organization

Strong power skills can benefit an employee's career, and your organization also benefits when employees possess them. These benefits might include:

• Discovering untapped talent: You may find that an entry-level employee has a knack for customer service and sales. Helping them hone these skills can lead to your organization hiring from within when the need for a new salesperson arises.

• Creating an agile workforce: When your employees have strong power skills, like problem-solving, they adapt quickly to the unknown, whether it's new technology or a worldwide pandemic that disrupts everything.

• Improving company culture: Improving power skills can foster an inclusive workplace that often leads to a more positive and inviting company culture.

• Increasing productivity: Employees with strong power skills often work faster and are more productive overall.

• Improving employee retention: Offering training and other opportunities to develop skills shows employees that you value them, which can lead to greater retention.

• Attracting high-quality talent: When your company culture is positive and your employees are happy, your reputation as a desirable workplace grows. This can help you attract new high-quality talent when necessary.

• Creating greater customer satisfaction: Employees with strong power skills can quickly adapt to customers' changing needs. This often leads to higher customer satisfaction rates.

Creating successful managers and leaders: Good managers and leaders often have strong power skills. Honing these skills can help you develop future leaders that you can hire from within your workforce.

7 power skills examples

Although any combination of power skills can help improve your employees' job performance, some are growing in importance more rapidly than others, especially as artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform the work landscape. Consider the following seven power skills, which are in high demand [1], and determine how you can help your employees develop these critical skills.:

1. Communication

Every job requires you to communicate on some level, whether that be speaking, active listening, body language, observing, video calling, emailing, creating documents, or much more. With globalization and remote work on the rise, knowing how to communicate well, both in person and virtually, with people worldwide is more important than ever. An employee who can clearly express their thoughts and ideas is vital to your organization, as is an employee who listens well and understands what other people have to say.

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2. Resilience, flexibility, and agility

As with creative thought, the need for resilient, flexible, and agile employees is essential to growth and innovation in an uncertain, unpredictable economic environment. You likely want a staff that can manage complex dynamics and navigate uncertainty, adapting, learning, and even thriving in the face of constant change. If your employees can maintain confidence while navigating uncertainty, your organization is more likely to turn disruptions into progress. 

3. Leadership

While not every employee aspires to a management or leadership position, taking on a leadership role is vital across all departments and levels of your workforce. Strong leaders are essential to leading teams, managing talent, and adapting to environmental demands in complex and widely interconnected environments. This is a critical skill for you to have in modern work environments, and a great one to cultivate in younger workers. Having leaders scattered throughout your team can inspire other members, spark creativity and innovation, and help you stay competitive.

Read more: How to Identify Leadership Potential in Your Team: A Guide for Companies

4. Curiosity and enthusiasm

Many organizations now place increasing value on autonomy, accountability, and reliability among employees, requiring enthusiasm, independence, rigor, and virtual collaboration when approaching tasks. Curiosity and enthusiasm also indicate a commitment to continuous learning and can help your employees keep up with rapidly evolving technology. 

5. Problem-solving and critical thinking

Being a good problem solver usually means you know how to identify a problem and follow a series of steps to develop a solution. Whether you’re an entry-level employee or an executive, being able to solve problems independently often means you can think more critically, leading to better overall job performance. By using critical thinking, you can better understand a problem and apply logic and reason.

6. Creative thinking

As economic growth slows and global trade faces greater restrictions, it’s likely you’ll need employees who can think creatively to guide teams and solve complex problems, helping your organization maintain a competitive edge amid an uncertain economy.

7. Emotional intelligence

As a positive work-life balance becomes increasingly important for employees worldwide, so does the need for emotional intelligence. This involves how you relate to and control your emotions. According to Mental Health America, emotional intelligence involves five key areas [2]:

• Self-awareness

• Self-regulation

• Motivation 

• Empathy

• Social skills

Mastering emotional intelligence means recognizing that you cannot control how other people act, but you can control how you react. This can help your employees with a range of issues, from stress management to working with angry customers.

Ways to help employees improve: Power skills training and upskilling

Many organizations have taken steps to help foster and grow their employees' power skills through upskilling programs or creating job-embedded opportunities to develop and refine these skills. For example, if you want to help your staff build teamwork and communication skills, try team-building exercises or group goal-setting activities. You can also assign employees to new projects they may be unfamiliar with, allowing them to practice skills such as problem-solving and decision-making.

Make an investment in your employees and the future of your company with one or more of these other upskilling ideas:

• Encourage coaching or mentoring.  

• Create eLearning opportunities that employees can participate in on their own time. 

• Offer lectures and talks from experts.

• Provide classroom-style training.

• Reward employees who demonstrate strong power skills in certain situations. 

• Create a culture of lifelong learning.

• Spotlight employees with strong power skills.

• Provide opportunities for employees to practice specific power skills.

• Create professional development plans that focus on specific skills.

• Keep the lines of communication and feedback open between management and employees.

Explore our free upskilling resources

With Coursera for Business, your employees will gain access to content from 350+ leading universities and industry partners, where they can build real-world experience with innovative skills, tools, and technologies while earning globally recognized credentials. Our customizable, scalable learning solutions balance workplace and technical skills training in diverse formats, from video clips to Guided Projects and Professional Certificates.

• Subscribe to our free LinkedIn newsletter, The Learning Curve, where you can gain insights and ideas for upskilling your team.

• Watch our Demo video to discover more about how Coursera for Business can help you attract and retain talent.

• Provide your team with the opportunity to quickly build in-demand skills with Coursera for Teams, designed to meet the needs of teams with five to 125 employees.

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