The conversation about “future of work” has been going on for years, but, at ProfilAS, we think most people have been asking the wrong questions. Instead of wondering what jobs will exist in ten years, maybe we should be asking: what competencies will separate high performers from everyone else?

The answer appears to be shifting faster than most organizations realize.

Three years ago, one of our founders worked with a marketing team that was considered highly effective. They had strong analytical skills, creative thinking capabilities, and solid project management competencies. By traditional measures, they were performing well and seemed well-positioned for continued success.

Today, half of that team is struggling. Not because they’ve gotten worse at their core skills, but because the competency requirements of their roles have fundamentally changed. The rise of AI-powered tools, changing customer expectations, and new competitive dynamics have created a different performance landscape.

What’s particularly interesting is which competencies have become more valuable and which have become less critical. Deep technical expertise in specific tools or platforms—previously a major differentiator—now matters less than the ability to quickly adapt to new technologies and integrate them effectively into workflows.

Meanwhile, competencies that were often considered “soft skills” have become increasingly crucial. The ability to synthesize information from multiple sources, ask better questions, and collaborate effectively with both humans and AI systems now directly impacts performance in ways that weren’t true even recently.

This shift creates a challenge for talent development strategies built around traditional competency models. Many organizations are still training people for the work environment of five years ago rather than the one they’re operating in today.

Research suggests that certain meta-competencies—skills that help you develop other skills—are becoming more valuable than specific technical abilities. Learning agility, adaptability under uncertainty, and the capacity to integrate diverse perspectives appear to predict success better than narrow expertise in particular domains.

But here’s what makes this transition particularly complex: these meta-competencies are harder to assess using traditional methods. You can’t evaluate someone’s learning agility with a multiple-choice test or measure their adaptability through a behavioral interview alone.

What’s needed are assessment approaches that can capture how people actually perform when faced with novel challenges or ambiguous situations. This might involve simulation exercises, portfolio assessments, or competency demonstrations in real-world contexts.

The implications extend beyond individual development to team composition and organizational design. Teams that succeed in this evolving environment tend to have complementary learning styles and diverse problem-solving approaches rather than similar technical backgrounds.

Organizations are starting to recognize that diversity of thinking and competency complementarity create more resilient and adaptable teams. But achieving this requires moving beyond traditional hiring criteria and development programs toward more sophisticated approaches to talent assessment and team design.

What’s encouraging is that technology is making these more nuanced assessments possible. We can now measure and analyze competency patterns in ways that would have been impractical just a few years ago, providing insights that help both individuals and organizations adapt more effectively.

The future of work isn’t just about new job titles or different technologies—it’s about fundamentally different competency requirements. The organizations that figure out how to assess, develop, and deploy these evolving competencies will have significant advantages in the marketplace.

The question isn’t whether your industry will be affected by these changes. The question is whether you’re building the competency assessment and development capabilities needed to thrive in an environment where the rules of performance keep evolving.

Interested to learn more? Check out our MANAGEMENT POTENTIAL Report