Soft Skills
Plan 2027 soft skills training around analytical thinking, resilience and adaptability, leadership and influence, communication, feedback and working well with AI. The first three are the core skills employers rate highest in the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, and the same report expects AI and big data to be the fastest-growing skills to 2030.
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, published in January 2025, draws on more than 1,000 employers that together represent over 14 million workers across 55 economies. It finds that, on average, 39% of workers' existing skill sets will be transformed or become outdated over the 2025 to 2030 period. Skills gaps are the barrier employers cite most when they try to transform their business: 63% name them as a major barrier.
The survey also asks which skills employers consider core for their workforce. Analytical thinking comes first (69% of employers), followed by resilience, flexibility and agility (67%) and leadership and social influence (61%).
AI and big data top the report's list of fastest-growing skills. That makes the human skills around them more valuable, not less: someone still has to decide which AI output to trust, explain it to a client and own the call.
| # | Topic | Why it matters in 2027 | Free way to start |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Analytical thinking and problem solving | The WEF's top core skill | Problem-solving activities |
| 2 | Resilience and adaptability | The WEF's second core skill | Team performance check |
| 3 | Influence without authority | Leadership and social influence is the WEF's third core skill | Influence without authority |
| 4 | Business storytelling | Turning analysis into a decision people act on | Storytelling check |
| 5 | Giving and receiving feedback | The habit that keeps skills moving | SBI feedback builder |
| 6 | Difficult conversations | Changing roles and tools create friction that has to be talked through | Difficult conversations guide |
| 7 | Negotiation | Every client and vendor call | Negotiation Room game |
| 8 | Psychological safety | Teams only learn if mistakes are safe to raise | Psychological safety check |
| 9 | First-time manager skills | New managers set the habits their teams copy | New manager readiness check |
| 10 | Judgement with AI | Knowing what to verify and what to own | AI wisdom check |
| 11 | Running effective meetings | Where most day-to-day collaboration happens | Effective meetings guide |
| 12 | Onboarding and inclusion | The first weeks shape how new joiners work | Onboarding health check |
For the evergreen version of this list, with what each skill looks like in practice, see soft skills every employee needs.
Start from the business goal for 2027, not from the list. Each goal points to a small set of topics:
| Quarter | What happens |
|---|---|
| January to March | Baseline check for the team. Workshop on topic one. |
| April to June | Two short follow-ups on topic one. Workshop on topic two. |
| July to September | Follow-ups on topic two. Workshop on topic three. |
| October to December | Follow-ups on topic three. Re-run the baseline check and compare. Pick the 2028 topics from the gaps that remain. |
If your organisation plans on the Indian financial year, shift the same pattern to start in April. The rhythm matters more than the start date.
Tour De Force is an experiential corporate training company in Bengaluru. Since 2010 we have trained 22,000+ people across 25+ Indian cities in storytelling, outbound team-building, soft skills and AI integration. See our soft skills programs.
Tour De Force runs this as live, experiential training for teams worldwide, online and in person. Talk to us, or play The Weekly Challenge from our gamified learning apps to see the method in ten minutes.
Questions
On the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025: analytical thinking (a core skill for 69% of employers), resilience, flexibility and agility (67%), and leadership and social influence (61%), with communication and feedback as the everyday skills that carry them.
Three is a practical number for one team. Depth beats coverage: a workshop and two follow-ups on each topic will change more than a dozen one-off sessions.
Yes. The WEF expects AI and big data to be the fastest-growing skills, and people still decide what to trust, how to explain it and who owns the outcome.
Use the four Kirkpatrick levels: reaction, learning, behaviour and results. Run a baseline check before training and the same check a few months later, and ask managers which behaviours they now see at work.
From the World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, published in January 2025, which surveyed more than 1,000 employers representing over 14 million workers across 55 economies.
Keep reading
The six skills that decide most careers, and how to prioritise them.
FrameworksReaction, learning, behaviour and results: how to measure whether training worked.
ProgramCommunication, feedback, influence and resilience, practised in the room.
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