Emotional skills are the single most important workplace skill today. Emotions are deeply connected to all the other key capabilities needed in modern working life – from communication and self-leadership to information processing, stress management, and recovery. Here’s how.
In today’s fast-paced world of work, the importance of individual workplace skills is steadily increasing – and there’s every reason to believe this will only become even more critical in the future.
Workplace trends like…
- the ever-increasing flood of information
- broad strategic goals that no single person can solve alone
- remote and hybrid work
- changing or fragmented job roles and objectives
- rapidly shifting business environments
- artificial intelligence and other new technologies
…have made one thing clear: technical expertise alone is no longer enough. To thrive at work, we need a broader set of skills.
Here are five essential workplace skills you’ll need in 2025 (and beyond). We’ll start with emotional skills, because we believe they are the most important – and you’ll soon see how emotions connect to every other modern workplace skill.
1. Emotional skills
Every one of us experiences a wide range of emotions at work – excitement, confusion, pride, frustration, joy, anxiety, satisfaction…
These emotions impact:
- your ability to focus
- your decision-making
- your motivation
- your energy levels
- your capacity to learn, think, and spot opportunities
- your ability to take action
- how well you collaborate with others
- and how your work feels – is it inspiring or a constant uphill struggle?
It’s hard to think of any area of working life that emotions don’t affect.
That’s why emotional skills – and the ability to regulate your own emotions – are so crucial.
Learn to:
- pay attention to your emotions
- recognize and name different feelings
- and most importantly:
understand how your emotions affect your work and your working life.
Pause often enough to ask yourself: How am I feeling right now?
Don’t settle for “good” or “bad” as an answer. Learn to differentiate between the many shades of those feelings.
Relief, excitement, satisfaction, and pride are all positive emotions, but they each feel very different.
Likewise, sadness, anxiety, frustration, and irritation are all negative emotions – but each carries its own message. For example, behind frustration is a blocked desire. Behind fear lies some kind of threat.
Next time your thinking feels stuck or even a small task feels heavy, take a closer look at your emotional state. How are your emotions affecting your ability to think and act right now?
Often, you can’t choose which emotions you experience. But you can choose how you respond to those emotions and what you do with them.
2. Information processing and creativity
The amount of information in today’s working life is enormous. Emails, newsletters, intranet updates, news, communication channels, social media, reports…
One of the key workplace skills is being able to handle this flood of information – starting with filtering out what’s relevant and ignoring what’s not (including misinformation). Then comes making use of that relevant data.
AI can help, but human thinking and judgment are still essential. And here’s something important to know:
Our ability to process information is tightly connected to our emotional state.
When you’re aware of how your emotions affect your capacity to absorb and process information, it becomes much easier to decide what to do with it.
Remember this:
- Negative emotions narrow thinking and get your mind stuck on details. When anxious, stressed, or rushed, your brain switches to survival mode. Big-picture thinking and creative problem-solving become nearly impossible.
- Positive emotions broaden your thinking, make it more flexible, help you see the bigger picture, and increase your capacity to act and recover from setbacks.
When your mind is open and your thinking is flexible, learning, problem-solving, and creativity flow much more easily.
You’ve probably noticed this yourself – when you’re excited, creative ideas tend to spark!
3. Social skills
Humans are social beings. But in today’s world of remote work and digital screens, our connections with colleagues can easily weaken.
Research consistently shows that strong social relationships protect us from illness, mental health issues, and burnout.
And in the workplace, the challenges we face are often too complex for any one person to solve alone. We need collaboration.
So how can we strengthen social connections and improve teamwork?
Here are a few tips:
- Practice being truly present.
Pause to fully engage with the person in front of you, without multitasking. - Be genuinely curious about others.
Who is this person? How might they be feeling? What excites or worries them? Don’t be afraid to ask how they’re doing or what they’re working on. - Share your emotions.
We often hide behind our professional masks at work. But opening up about what excites, frustrates, or worries you at work helps build trust.
When emotions are shared, there’s often a sense of relief: Ah, I’m not alone in this! Others feel the same way too.
4. Influencing skills
A message that doesn’t stir any emotions won’t have much impact.
Think about what it takes to create change or influence people’s behavior. Information alone isn’t enough. It’s been said that only 10% of change is intellectual – the rest is emotion and action.
We often fall into the trap of believing that if we just present the facts, people will absorb the information and act accordingly.
But humans aren’t purely rational.
The first step in getting someone’s attention is sparking their curiosity.
When people are curious, they’re hungry for more information.
So ask yourself: How can I make people just a bit more curious about what I’m about to share?
Even a simple shift in how you open a conversation can make a difference.
Try this:
Which of these conversation starters would make you lean in more:
- “Now we’ll go through next year’s action plan.”
- “I’d love to share something with you about next year’s action plan – I think it might interest you too. I’m sure you’ll have thoughts on this.”
The second one feels more engaging, right?
(If you want to dive deeper into influencing and communication at work, check out our other blog on that topic.)
5. Self-leadership and recovery
For many knowledge workers, the job follows them everywhere – in your phone, your laptop, or at the very least, in your head.
When no one’s monitoring your working hours, self-leadership becomes essential for managing stress, ensuring recovery, and maintaining your energy.
The internet is full of advice:
- Prioritize your tasks.
- Focus on one thing at a time and give yourself undisturbed breaks.
- Don’t start your morning by checking emails – first, decide what’s most important today.
These are all useful tips. But why is it so hard to follow them?
Self-leadership and recovery aren’t about knowing what to do – they’re about turning that knowledge into action.
Try these:
- Practice the feeling of relief.
Pause, take a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Focus on feeling relief – especially when you’ve completed a task. - Train your mind to notice the positive.
Our minds often fixate on what’s missing or what went wrong. Make a habit of noticing what you’ve accomplished and where you’ve made progress.
Recognize your emotions to boost your sense of control.
Keep an emotion journal. After finishing a task, reflect: Did it feel heavy or draining? Or inspiring and meaningful?
How well are you mastering the future workplace skills?
How do you handle your emotions when pressure rises? Are you giving yourself enough time to recover? Does your work feel inspiring and engaging – or like a constant uphill battle? How’s your collaboration and communication with colleagues?
Alongside our emotional skills training for organizations, we’ve created a practical training program for individuals.
In the Emergy® SKILLS online training, you’ll learn over 20 practical emotional skills to strengthen your workplace capabilities. This training is for anyone who wants to develop their communication and emotional skills at work – no matter their role.
