The 2022 Workplace Learning

Trends That Matter Most for

HR and L&D Leaders

There’s nothing “soft”

about power skills
Let’s make 2022 the year when we finally retire the phrase “soft skills.” Referring to skills as “hard” or “soft”
doesn’t just create a false dichotomy — these terms are also misleading. Josh Bersin writes, “Hard skills are
soft (they change all the time, are constantly being obsoleted, and are relatively easy to learn), and soft skills
are hard (they are difficult to build, critical, and take extreme effort to obtain).” Bersin is one of many voices
in HR and learning and development (L&D) recommending that we rename “soft skills” as “power skills”
because they’re the skills that give you real “power” at work.

At Udemy Business, we’ve adopted the term “power skills” for these reasons, and you’ll find this language
throughout our 2022 Workplace Learning Trends Report. Udemy’s Chief Learning Officer, Melissa Daimler,
says, “Power skills have always been an important part of workplace learning, and their importance has
only grown as the global workforce navigates the changes of the last few years. Enabling employees to
develop power skills related to communication, collaboration, and change leadership is key to building
an agile business and a strong company culture.”

To understand which power skills topics saw surging demand in the past year, we analyzed the activity of
Udemy Business learners. HR and L&D leaders will want to make note of the power skills that saw the most
consumption growth in the past year, as well as the power skills that saw the most overall consumption by
learners. These are important skills to cultivate in your direct teams, as well as across your entire organization
— in roles from data science to software developer to finance to marketing functions. Prioritize these
capabilities in your organization and watch as employees confidently tackle the challenges of the year ahead.

The 2022 HR and

L&D Workplace
Learning Trends
Power skills consumption growth, 2021

Assertiveness 250%

Diversity and inclusion 205%

OKR (goal setting) 184%

English language 150%

Facilitation 148%

Team building 129%

Strategic thinking 119%

Problem solving

Management coaching
108%

108% “”
We as business, HR, and
Mentoring 107% L&D professionals have to
stop calling these ‘soft skills’
and start thinking of them as
Top consumed power skills, 2021
‘power skills.’ They are the
most important skills we have
1. Communication skills
in our companies, and we
2. Leadership skills
have to build them, nourish
3. English language them, and continuously
4. Presentation skills evolve them with vigor.
5. PowerPoint Josh Bersin, “Let’s Stop Talking About Soft
Skills: They’re Power Skills”
6. Time management

7. Design thinking
The trending power skills listed here
8. JIRA will help employees prepare for the
9. Listening skills demands of the rapidly changing
workplace. Continuous learning is the
10. Diversity and inclusion key for employees to remain agile and
competitive in the future.
Surging HR and L&D skills data is based on YoY 2019-2020 to 2020-
2021 consumption growth from Udemy Business learners. Top overall
HR and L&D skills are based on 2020-2021 total hours of consumption
from Udemy Business learners. See full methodology below.

Prepare your team for the future

with in-demand power skills
The demands of the workplace are changing. Whether it’s adapting to a
remote or hybrid setting, building more diverse, equitable, and inclusive
organizations, or finding new ways to enhance productivity, working in a
state of constant flux is now accepted and expected.

All this change doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It has a very real impact on
employees and their ability to excel. Keeping up with constant change,
both in the market and the workplace, is a serious challenge. According
to McKinsey, there are three criteria for the foundational skills that will
help everyone, regardless of their sector or occupation:

• They add value beyond what can be done by automated systems and
intelligent machines
• They operate in a digital environment
• They continually adapt to new ways of working and new occupations

Many of the power skills covered here meet these criteria and are critical
to your employees’ future success.

Ready to start planning your team’s learning in 2022 and beyond? Our Udemy Business learning
experts are here to help. Get in touch to learn how you can help your team unlock their potential
and drive real business outcomes through always-on learning.

METHODOLOGY

The 2022 Workplace Learning Trends Report is based on data from the learning behavior of thousands of global companies using
the Udemy Business platform. All Udemy Business courses are associated with topics, with each course having up to five topics.
These topics are what you see as the trending skill topics within the report. For courses with multiple topics, consumption minutes
are divided equally across all topics associated with those courses.

The surging power skills data listed here are based on year-over-year July 1, 2019-July 1, 2020 to July 1, 2020-July 1, 2021 con-
sumption growth from Udemy Business learners. Top overall skills data reflects topics with the most hours of consumption in the
year July 1, 2020-July 1, 2021.