As businesses have opted for remote work for the past couple of years, most of us have been working away from the office for a while. This might potentially change the way we work on a permanent basis. So here’s our take on remote working.

T-shaped talent: a combination of expertise and collaboration

T-shaped talent is a metaphor to describe individuals who have deep knowledge of their own technical expertise and broad knowledge of different areas of expertise.

While new technologies today are rapidly changing the demand and expectation of talents’ qualities and skills, gaining a specialisation in a particular area is no longer sufficient. T-shaped talents possess excellent knowledge of and skills in specific areas that facilitate the discussion of projects from multiple perspectives. 

With an understanding of knowledge in different fields, talents with T-shaped skills can facilitate cross-team collaboration when working on the same project. They also encourage a more multi-disciplinary approach to identify the opportunities and concerns of projects. 

In today’s workplace, the qualities of T-shaped talents have shown growing importance and this explains why T-shaped talents are the most-demand employees in the future of work.

The need for T-shaped talents depends on your workplace structure

Nonetheless, whether your company should hire more talents with T-shaped skills should depend on the workplace structure. Technology-enabled companies in particular might consider hiring T-shaped talents with diverse digital skills to brainstorm ideas together while companies that place focus on work quality might consider hiring talents with one unique specialisation. To attract the best-fit talents for your company, one prerequisite trait is to evaluate the working structure before evaluating the type of talent you are looking for.