Uri Poliavich: Professional Adaptability for a Digital Environment

The digital sector is developing faster than curricula, certifications, and job descriptions can keep up with. The relevant technologies change within a few product cycles, while a career lasts for decades. Uri Poliavich frames this development as a lasting reality of the labor market and not as a temporary shift tied to a single technological advance.

Key Elements of Professional Flexibility

As Uri Poliavich sees it, professional flexibility consists of five interrelated abilities:

• Learning new job-related technologies quickly.
• Adapting to changes in how the job is actually done.
• Using one’s existing knowledge in a novel context.
• Treating learning as an ongoing activity throughout one’s career.
• Maintaining the currency of specific skills as underlying technology evolves.

The pace of this change is visible in how fast the sector itself is growing. Canada’s combined software development and computer services industries generated $161.9 billion in operating revenue in 2024, an 8.5% increase over the prior year. Uri Poliavich sees this example of development as proof of how quickly the tools and processes related to this industry evolve. This is why he considers adaptability a separate capability.

Learning New Work Tools Quickly

Uri Poliavich distinguishes between the skill of acquiring a new tool and how easily someone handles technology in general. Being confident with familiar software is a separate skill from picking up an unfamiliar platform quickly. In his definition of the first skill, Uri Poliavich focuses on the speed at which a person acquires a new tool. This speed refers to how quickly a person moves from first contact with an unfamiliar tool to confident use.

This skill is especially important in positions that have not traditionally been considered technical. As Uri Poliavich explains, computer systems are increasingly being used in non-technical occupations such as retail, logistics, and administration. In these occupations, the work itself is not changing, but the tools are. The ability to adapt to new scheduling systems or reporting dashboards is becoming increasingly valuable.

Adjusting to Changes in Professional Processes

Change can be a new tool or a new process; Uri Poliavich sees them as distinct things that are often misunderstood. A process change can involve a task that was previously done in one step becoming three steps, or a decision that was previously made by one individual becoming something that must go through a shared system before being made. Uri Poliavich suggests that process change requires more from the employee than learning a new interface because it involves updating a mental model of how the work actually gets done, not just where the clicks happen.

Employees who are successful in adopting process changes have a certain trait in common. They ask about the purpose of a new process before comparing it to the old one. This helps keep the focus on outcome, which Uri Poliavich sees as the clearest way to determine if a process change is an improvement.

Applying Existing Knowledge to New Tasks

Not every new job requires new training, and Uri Poliavich points out that this distinction lies at the root of the third capability of professional adaptability. A worker who is familiar with organizing a workflow, controlling a project schedule, or communicating with a client usually possesses the required skills for performing an unfamiliar task when they recognize the elements of the old experience that are applicable to the new situation.

Treating Learning as a Long-Term Part of a Career

Uri Poliavich says that a qualification is the beginning of a professional cycle that continues long after it is earned. The degree or certificate serves as an attestation that the person studied a certain course at a certain stage, and the use and upgrading of that knowledge go on as technology changes around.

Uri Poliavich points out that the continuous approach involves two interrelated activities. The first is upskilling, which means developing an existing qualification. The second is reskilling, which means preparing for a different type of work. Uri Poliavich views both as continuous practices for staying current throughout a career.

Keeping Skills Current as Technology Moves

A key part of this capability is maintaining the relevance of certain skills amid constant changes to the technology these skills rely on. The skill that was acquired five years ago is still quite relevant today, and its application only needs to be updated due to new platforms and changed requirements. Uri Poliavich suggests that this skill depends less on any particular course and more on a constant process of observation, noticing that a known task has changed in some way, and treating that as a signal for skill improvement. 

Professional Adaptability as an Ongoing Practice

The five capabilities mentioned by Uri Poliavich can be viewed collectively as an ongoing practice that is constantly updated. The quick learning of new tools, flexibility with process changes, application of existing knowledge to new tasks, constant learning, and updating of skills all have one thing in common: the need to respond to changes in the digital sector.

The general message from Uri Poliavich is that this capability becomes more important over time than any particular qualification, tool, or process a worker may possess at a given moment. Current platforms will likely be replaced by others in a couple of years, and Uri Poliavich points out that the ability to adapt to these changes is the actual skill.