By Melanie Barr, Community Director, Shore Junction.
Shore Junction is a youth innovation hub being created in the heart of Takapuna. It is being designed as a space for young people to connect, belong, and grow. Shore Junction will offer youth-friendly facilities and integrated services that support innovation, learning, wellbeing and creativity, enabling young people to accelerate their potential and embark on their future pathways to success.
"The skills needed to succeed in today’s world and the future are curiosity, creativity, taking initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking and empathy" ~ Tiffany Shlain, Filmmaker and Founder of the Webby Awards
A 2017 study by Mckinsey & Company found that almost half the activities people are currently paid to do globally could theoretically be automated using current technologies. With the future of work developing so rapidly, the skill sets of our young people need to shift with it.
People of any age will not simply train for jobs in the future; they will use the tools of social media platforms, creative design thinking and the vast access to worldwide expertise to increase their success. Devin Fidler, Research Director at the Institute for the Future is confident that as basic automation and machine learning become more prominent in the workplace, unique human skills will become more valuable.
Skills and capabilities our young people need to enhance and focus on more are social and emotional skills and advanced cognitive capabilities, such as logical reasoning and creativity. CareersNZ has identified the seven essential employability skills: positive attitude, communication, teamwork, self-management, willingness to learn, thinking skills and resilience. It is for this employability reason soft skills are more important than ever.
Soft skills involve personality traits and interpersonal skills, these stem from who you are and how you interact with the world around you. These skills can be broken down into two categories: internal and external. Internal soft skills relate directly to how you interact with yourself (accepting criticism, critical thinking/problem solving, resilience). External soft skills relate directly to how you talk to and handle the people around you (effective communication, adaptability, negotiation). All of these skills can be trained, harnessed, and strengthened.
Along with our Pillar Programming, Shore Junction will offer a range of workshops and development opportunities to refine soft skills and basic life skills. These sessions, tailored specifically to young people will include skill training that is not commonly available within high school curriculum or tertiary education.
