The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way professionals work, learn, and do business. Traditional face-to-face interactions and functions now talk place in the digital space. This change requires professionals to acquire the necessary digital skills and soft skills to work, collaborate, and manage teams remotely.
LinkedIn’s data shows that professionals around the world have undertaken their learning journey in this regard seriously. In fact, hours spent learning on LinkedIn Learning in July 2020 is three times the amount in July 2019. LinkedIn’s third annual Most Popular Courses list rounds up the top online courses taken most by LinkedIn members in the past year. the data gather from July 2019 to June 2020 offers insight into topics that are top of mind for professionals today.
Top 10 most popular courses of 2020
- Time Management: Working from Home
- Strategic Thinking
- Remote Work Foundations
- Learning Python
- Developing Your Emotional Intelligence
- Excel 2016 Essential Training
- Excel Essential Training (Office 365)
- Communicating with Confidence
- Cert Prep: Project Management Professional (PMP)®
- Project Management Foundations
The list reflects an interest in both digital skills and soft skills. It’s worth noting, though, that 5 out of 10 of these courses focus on soft skills. In fact, the number of people using LinkedIn to learn soft skills doubled in the past year, growing at an even faster rate than those learning hard skills.
In addition, LinkedIn’s data shows that these are the top five courses that are tailored to groups of professionals with specific needs. More businesses take courses on time management, strategic thinking, cert prep, remote work foundations, and Excel 2016 training. Job-seekers focus on learning strategic thinking, learning Python, cert prep, time management, and Excel Office 365 training. Meanwhile, IT professionals improve their skills on Python, time management, strategic thinking, core concepts of cloud computing, and remote work foudnations.
LinkedIn’s data shows that the Philippines is one of the leading regions for growth in remote job postings, along with Australia and New Zealand. The top remote jobs in the Philippines are freelance writer, data encoder, accountant, data entry clerk, and technical support engineer.
To provide resources and tools to the professional community, LinkedIn will make the courses on its Most Popular Courses list free for all to use until September 30, 2020.
