The emergence of Industry 5.0 (I5.0) and the integration of smart technologies in Operations Management (OM) are reshaping the competences required for sustainable business practices. By aligning human-centric, sustainable, and resilience-driven principles with advanced technological solutions, Work 5.0 emphasizes the critical role of human workers in collaboration with intelligent systems. This paper investigated the specific Work 5.0 competence-based requirements essential for achieving smart and sustainable operations management. Therefore, through a survey conducted in Italy, we identified a competence framework tailored to smart and sustainable operations. Key competences preferred by respondents included data management and analysis, project management skills, modelling skills, programming and software development cloud management, and digital marketing. In addition, participants recognized project-based learning, hands-on learning, and problem-based learning as the favored teaching approaches for getting course. The results will have direct implications for the design of engineering education 5.0 programs and lifelong learning initiatives for requalification of existing workforce. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
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