Our workplaces are changing, and the changes are dramatic. Professionals need to pay attention to and prepare for the workplaces of the future. An important aspect of this preparation is to develop the job skills that will help you succeed and thrive in the new reality of the next decade. Consider how your own career has evolved over the last five years, and you can imagine how much it may change in the next five. These are the most important job skills for the future, and there's no better time than now to start building them.

As the world evolves to embrace the 4th industrial revolution, our workplaces are changing. Just as other industrial revolutions transformed the skillset and experience required from the workforce, we can expect the same from this revolution. Only five years from now, 35 percent of the skills seen as essential today will change according to the World Economic Forum. While we're not able to predict the future, yet, here are the ten most important job skills (plus a bonus one) every company will be looking for in 2020. Data has become every organization's most important asset--the "fuel" of the 4th industrial revolution.

It would appear that the goal of every second headline on the topic of "the future of work" is to instill an inherent fear in workers regarding what is to come and concerning the status of their careers and their future AI coworkers. The message seems to be: "Robots are coming for your jobs and there isn't much you can do about it." The former portion of this message is somewhat true, automation is on the rise, which will cause many positions to be filled by high-speed, data-crunching technology. But the latter, rather uninspiring portion, is not true. Working humans are not doomed as long as the companies they work for recognize the skills of the future and focus on building and developing the areas robots cannot do well.