Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Soft skills, strong impacts
Organization
May 11, 2021 – The pandemic has dramatically accelerated the need for new skills in the workforce, with social and emotional skills high in demand. The proportion of companies addressing empathy and interpersonal skills doubled in 2020, according to our newest McKinsey Global Survey on reskilling.
To read the article, see “Building workforce skills at scale to thrive during—and after—the COVID-19 crisis,” April 30, 2021.
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Visual form
Single-panel horizontal dumbbell chart.
Layout / body structure
The chart is one ranked chart with ten horizontal rows running top to bottom from leadership and managing others down to advanced IT skills and programming. Reader scans each row left to right from the open 2019 marker to the filled 2020 marker and then moves downward through the full skill list.
What is being compared
It compares the share of respondents saying companies prioritized specific skills through reskilling in 2019 versus 2020. The rows also split into three skill families shown in the legend: social and emotional skills, advanced cognitive skills, and technological skills.
Measurement system
The measure is percent of respondents on a horizontal 0 to 60 scale. Open circles mark 2019, filled circles mark 2020, and color identifies the skill family for each row.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each skill is drawn as a two-point range with a thin connector between the two years, so the eye can see both level and movement at once. The left labels name the skill, the legend sits above the plot, and the gridlines keep the row-by-row differences comparable across the full chart.
Main takeaway from the visual
The 2020 priorities cluster around soft and advanced cognitive capabilities rather than narrow technical specialties. Leadership, critical thinking, and project management all sit at or near the top, while only a few technology rows break into the upper half of the ranking.
Key standout values or extremes
Leadership and managing others rises from about 41 percent in 2019 to 51 percent in 2020, critical thinking and decision making moves from roughly 44 to 50, and project management jumps from about 33 to 50. Adaptability and continuous learning reaches about 40, while basic digital skills climbs from roughly 23 to 39 and advanced IT skills and programming stays near the low 30s.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.