The Top Skill Employers Want and Professionals are Learning (And Courses to Help You Learn it Too)

This week professionals are spending a disproportionate amount of time learning a top skill companies need right now—teamwork. Teamwork is mentioned as a desired skill in about 2 million current job postings on LinkedIn. 

How can you improve the way you work with colleagues in this ever-changing world of work? Check out four trending courses this week on how to better collaborate and how tools like Sharepoint and G-Suite can help -- free through June 30th. 

1. Psychological Safety: Clear Blocks to Innovation, Collaboration, and Risk-Taking

Psychological safety is a key factor in healthy teams. A leader’s job—whether at the top of an organization or somewhere in the middle—is to create a safe space for people to speak up, make mistakes, and bring their full selves to work. 

This course can help you recognize and promote psychological safety—clearing the big blocks to innovation, connection, and collaboration in your organization. Amy Edmondson, professor of leadership and management at Harvard Business School, introduces nine actionable tips, including:

•  Encouraging open dialogue

• Reinforcing the purpose and meaning of your organization

• Leading with openness

• Modeling curiosity

• Soliciting feedback

• Celebrating risk. 

Plus, learn easy ways to incorporate psychological safety into your daily practice.

2. Teamwork Foundations

Your performance depends on your ability to work successfully with other people. Instructor Chris Croft breaks down the qualities of effective teams and the role you play. Learn how to: 

• Identify your own strengths and weaknesses

• Understand and deliver what's expected of you

• Effectively listen to other team members

• Communicate clearly in groups

• Play more than one role

• Being a supportive teammate 

3. Microsoft Collaboration: Sharepoint Teams Groups

Learn how to create organization-wide systems of collaboration using Microsoft SharePoint, Teams, and Office 365 Groups.

 Instructor Gini von Courter dives into each of the programs, showing you how to create systems for asynchronous collaboration, such as file sharing, as well as communication-based collaboration that's targeted to specific members or groups inside an organization. Learn how to:

• Create a SharePoint team site and an Office 365 group, as well as how you can use your sites and groups together. 

• Use Teams as the collaboration hub that gives users one access point for their Teams, SharePoint sites, and Groups, including how to include cloud storage, create a tab for a page from a SharePoint site, display a SharePoint list in Teams, and more.

4. Team Collaboration in G-Suite

G Suite was designed with collaboration in mind. Learn how to fully leverage the collaboration features offered in this popular cloud-based productivity platform. 

Dan Gookin offers tips for maximum team productivity using the G Suite apps, explaining how to: 

• Partner with colleagues on documents

• Manage files and folders as a team on Google Drive

• Use Google Meet to get together and share ideas

• How to create a shared schedule

• Use Google Sites to create webpages for sharing documents, use Google Slides to give presentations, and more.

Learn more about courses available to help you and your career—and stay tuned to find out the trending skill next week and the courses to help you learn them.