Prototype of the Best Employee 2025 and 2035: Do You Recognize Yourself?

Although the demand for labor may be slowing down, judging by trends in the European market, especially in Germany, anyone who wants to can still find work. We were interested in how the prototype of the best employee looks today and how it will look in ten years considering the technological changes we are witnessing. Krešimir Šimac, owner and director of Mirakul, a business consulting company for entrepreneurs and managers, believes that it is the same as it was fifty years ago and will be the same in fifty years. It is about a responsible, hardworking team player, creative and passionate about work with a high degree of emotional intelligence. Of course, one must also be honest. Željko Šundov, principal at the Amrop Zagreb agency, specialized in recruitment, selection, and consulting for middle and senior management, speaks similarly. However, the needs for business skills are changing.

– Today, the best employee needs to have advanced IT and digital knowledge, must be exceptionally creative and enterprising, and must always be ready to learn and accept new solutions. They need to have an entrepreneurial approach, a very good understanding of the broader business picture and the activity they are engaged in. They must also have very developed communication skills – lists Šimac.

Informal Methods

Šundov says that, generally speaking, emotional intelligence is becoming increasingly important in the approach to work, leadership, and business collaborations, as well as education, because alongside formal education, which is still not keeping pace with trends quickly enough, there is an exceptional focus on informal methods of learning and development, and, among other things, he emphasizes the focus on employee and team productivity. Employees are increasingly seeking and expecting flexibility to align their private and professional lives, which managers will have to adapt to.

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Sanja Petek Mujačić, executive director and partner at the consulting firm Spring+shift, which supports clients on organizational and sustainable development topics, states that according to the World Economic Forum report ‘Future of Jobs 2025’, analytical thinking, problem-solving, and technological literacy are today indispensable skills. In their industry today, she emphasizes, projects are complex, so collaboration and integration of different knowledge and perspectives are essential.

– In such an environment, communication skills and emotional intelligence help us maintain quality relationships both with clients and within the team. In short, consultants should be ready to respond quickly to changes and use analytical thinking to help clients make better decisions – emphasizes Petek Mujačić.

Transferable Skills

The Croatian Employment Service (HZZ) adds that besides professional knowledge and skills, employers highlight so-called soft or transferable skills as extremely important, such as teamwork, adaptability to new situations, verbal expression and writing, communication skills, analytical skills, problem-solving skills, flexibility, and work ethic.

– HZZ has developed a questionnaire ‘What Skills Do Employers Seek’ that measures the prominence of twenty key desirable traits of workers. Furthermore, underdeveloped soft skills cannot be compensated for by above-average developed professional knowledge and skills, which is why employers most often seek a combination of the mentioned skills and knowledge of workers – they note at HZZ.

This is confirmed at Belupo, where they are building a candidate database that they include in the selection process when opportunities arise. Through regular satisfaction and engagement surveys, they continuously assess employee needs.

– In addition to developing professional skills, we are making significant efforts to develop leadership skills and other so-called soft skills – they emphasize at Belupo.

At INA, they strive to retain talent and reward loyalty to the company by offering various benefits (even two hundred of them, such as flexible work arrangements for a balance between private and professional life) and a range of initiatives for their overall well-being, while inclusive policies promote diversity and inclusion, ensuring that all employees feel valued. In the Adris group, they state that Croatia osiguranje (CO) hires an average of over four hundred new employees per year, so they invest great attention and effort into quality selection processes. The priority is to retain talented individuals, with key feedback on the development of employee competencies.

– We use all employment channels, and we are particularly pleased with the success of the internal referral system ‘It Pays to Work with the Best’, where employees are encouraged to recommend future colleagues, which is also rewarded – they note at CO.

The same is true in the tourism sector of the Adris group, where they are aware of the importance of adapting to employee needs. Atlantic Group also finds its employees through various channels. The search for talent begins internally as they primarily want to build a culture of developing their people, and targeted employer branding campaigns play an important role in attracting new talent.

Important Interpersonal Traits

We were curious about what our interlocutors think the prototype of the best employee will look like in ten years. At HZZ, they say it is difficult to assess, but ‘following current trends, soft skills and developed interpersonal skills will remain key desirable traits, as well as continuous learning and investment in employees’. Šimac adds that AI and robots will then be part of all aspects of business, so basic IT knowledge will no longer be as important as strategic management of AI.

– The way of business communication will also change: less classical interpersonal communication, but more ability to clearly express thoughts in a digital environment, where creativity and strategic thinking outside the box will be even more pronounced, given that AI will provide us with unlimited opportunities for expression and creation. As technology further reduces human contact, and changes become more frequent and faster, mental health and the ability to manage stress will become key success factors, as employees will be exposed to constant adaptation to new technologies and work models – predicts Šimac.

In addition to AI, Petek Mujačić continues, the ability to ‘see the bigger picture and understand how different systems (business, technological, social) are interconnected and how the impacts of business decisions and behaviors extend’ will also be important. Employees will need to think systematically and holistically, but resilience, flexibility, and agility will remain key as market dynamics will not slow down.

– The best employee in ten years will certainly retain some values and beliefs, but with inevitable learning, development, and readiness to adapt to new technologies, styles, and living conditions. Innovation, productivity, and knowledge of new technologies and how to use them will be unavoidable characteristics of the best employees. When hiring, there will be more focus on skills and competencies, and less on job titles – notes Šundov.

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At Adris, they emphasize that the development of future employees in luxury tourism will be based on the skills necessary to provide personalized service at the highest level, along with a high level of technological literacy and sustainable thinking. The same applies to their other niches. In the INA group, with over eight thousand employees, it is understandable that they can hardly describe the prototype of the ideal worker today, let alone that for ten years from now. However, they will certainly need to have the knowledge and skills described at HZZ, as well as by Petek Mujačić, Šundov, and Šimac. At Belupo, they believe that in about ten years, the prototype of the best employee will be similar to today’s, with the caveat that ‘due to significant technological changes, there will be an even greater emphasis on ethics, empathy, and adaptability, which are competencies that should already be emphasized in education.’