Employability Skills: Adaptability

Learn 5 Ways to Easily Be Adaptable

Change is a constant throughout our lives, and even at our world of work, there will be rapid changes and tricky situations. The best way to learn to deal with unexpected scenarios is to learn to adapt quickly.

You would have read about animals adapting to their environment in order to survive. While we humans cannot change our colour to match our surroundings like a chameleon in order to adapt to the changing environment, we can definitely adapt to our surroundings, people and work environment when required, depending on the situation.

What is Adaptability?

Adaptability is your ability to adapt to changing work conditions and being flexible and enterprising. You will also be able to work effectively in a team and independently when required.

Today, employers seek employees who have adaptability skills in order to be able to achieve the goals of the organization.

Here are 5 ways to easily learn to adapt in your work environment:

1. Be Flexible:

Are you a to-do list person? What if there’s a new item added to your to-do list suddenly? Will you be stressed or upset? Or take it as an opportunity to do more and also learn?

While being organized is a highly valued trait, it is also important that you are flexible in case of last-minute changes or something unexpected happening. Being calm in changing situations will help you take on new challenges and find innovative ways to deal with them. Arriving at effective solutions will be easier for you if you anticipate changes or issues and think and respond quickly. Stay open to accepting diverse views and work effectively in multi-cultural environments.

1. Be Persistent:

Adaptability also involves being persistent in order to deal with the changing circumstance or new challenge. Do not give up easily. Keep trying harder and work effectively and patiently with your team. Resolve to be competent and persist until you arrive at a solution. Through your experience, you will have the advantage of being able to adapt quickly compared to others.

1. Be Positive:

Respond and adapt positively to any changes in your work environment. Staying positive without getting stressed about the problems facing you will help you tackle the issues creatively and be resourceful. Having a positive outlook and attitude will also help in processing emotions, bouncing back from setbacks and understanding people at work.

1. Accept Mistakes:

It is okay if you make mistakes. However, you must accept them and learn from them. Learn from criticisms and incorporate feedback effectively. You should think and adapt by making changes to your methods or attitude in order to improve yourself.

• Be Confident:

Do not be scared to embrace change. Learn on-the-job or on-the-challenge and improvise. Being confident of your skills and abilities will help in keeping deadlines. It also helps you multi-task and take initiatives. When you have to live in a different country or travel to various places or customer sites, confidence helps you adapt easily to the new environment and interact effectively with people.

You will notice that adaptability skills are tightly interlinked to other employability skills and being adaptable is part of being able to stay employable lifelong. Remember – “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin