What I Learned About Skills: Wisdom from the HR Innovation Circuit

At Phenom, we're constantly talking about skills. So when I had the chance to sit in on Ravin Jesuthasan's keynote "The Skills-Powered Organization: How to Design and Activate the Enterprise for the 'Next' of Work" at HR Tech, I gladly traded the Starbucks line to hear from an authority who's dedicated 15 years of research to this topic. Jesuthasan, from Mercer, didn't disappoint. His presentation was a goldmine of insights on how organizations need to evolve in our rapidly changing world.

The net net? All the talk about skills is not hype. Skills are indeed becoming the new currency for work, and organizations need to pivot from traditional job-based structures to more agile, skills-based models.

"We've had a 140-year legacy of this thing called the job being the singular currency for work," he pointed out. But in our increasingly digital and volatile world, this model is no longer sufficient. “The volatility of change in the global economy has increased by 2.5 times in the four years since COVID relative to the historical 30-year average,” he revealed, driving home why we need to adapt our approach to work and skills.

10 Key Takeaways About Skills

Global factors such as technological advancements (especially AI), climate crisis, and geopolitical issues are driving rapid changes in the economy and work.
The shift towards skills-based organizations is inevitable and necessary in the evolving landscape of work.
Organizations are transitioning from complicated to complex environments, requiring a shift from rigid structures to more agile, networked systems.
The focus is moving from scale, efficiency, and expertise to speed, agility, and execution in the new complex world.
AI and other technologies are democratizing knowledge and experience, reducing the premium on traditional expertise.
Organizations need to redesign work and rethink talent supply chains to enable more fluid movement of skills and continuous upskilling.
There's a growing emphasis on looking beyond traditional organizational boundaries to access the best skills.
It’s necessary to move beyond degrees to focus on smaller, more flexible skill-building blocks in talent management.
Companies should be intentional about designing wellbeing and learning into the flow of work.
Understanding the work itself is essential before moving forward with technology to solve problems or gaps.

Case(s) In Point

Throughout, Jesuthasan shared some interesting examples to illustrate how companies can begin making the shift to skills-based approaches in redesigning work. A few that come to mind:

Siemens and Disney collaboration: When Siemens developed a hearing aid for children, they partnered with Disney to market it effectively. This showcased how organizations can look beyond their walls to access the best skills for a task.
Unilever's Internal Talent Marketplace: Unilever embraced an internal talent marketplace that allows employees to move between projects based on their skills rather than their job titles. This flexibility enables them to respond quickly to changing business needs and tap into the right talent for specific tasks.
Providence Health: During COVID, Providence redesigned nursing work to address talent shortages, demonstrating how rethinking work can solve critical challenges.

Having worked with numerous customers who are on this skills journey themselves, I can’t miss the chance to share their inspirational stories:

Thermo Fisher Scientific:

Rapid growth created an opportunity for Thermo Fisher Scientific to enhance its employee experience and accelerate development, fill more roles internally, and improve talent retention. By implementing an internal talent marketplace with personalized job and learning recommendations, peer-to-peer networking, and targeted career development content and campaigns, they significantly improved their employee experience and internal sourcing capabilities. As a result, they exceeded their overall internal hiring goal, closing the year with a 46% internal hiring rate.

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany:

If you need inspiration on how to get started with skills, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany's journey is one to follow. Deftly balancing technology with humanity, they’re an excellent use case of successful change management, team enablement, and senior leadership buy-in from the start. Using their internal talent marketplace with AI-based matching for internal jobs, learning, and mentoring they’re empowering creativity, connection, and growth while ensuring they’re future-ready.

Truist Financial:

Truist Financial implemented a holistic talent solution to enhance experiences for all parties in the talent selection process. Within a year, they not only achieved benchmark-exceeding application completion rates with a modernized candidate journey, their new Career Discovery Hub saw nearly half of Truist's teammates visiting in one quarter — with over 3,000 employees adding 70,000 skills. This initiative established a strong foundation for innovative, intelligent enablement of teammate career mobility.

How To Get Started

While Jesuthasan lauded the benefits of AI and other technologies on productivity and efficiency, he made a salient point that’s worth reiterating. “Orgs that start with understanding the work have higher producing outcomes than those who just dive in with tech,” he said. “You can’t just throw tech at your workforce.”

Amen! We preach this at Phenom. Here’s how to make it happen in a way that works:

Seek input from organizational leaders and prioritize accordingly. Listen to the business to understand where skills can unlock value in driving results, future planning, or attracting the right talent. Use this information to set goals and prioritize, assembling the right resources, teams, and technology to make these use cases successful.
Develop a robust job architecture. This provides a foundation to identify job role structure, tasks, responsibilities, competencies, and skills. A well-structured job architecture is crucial for beginning your skills journey effectively.
Embrace experimentation and iteration. Start within HR, focusing on what you know best, especially if critical job roles or an organization-wide business case haven't been identified yet. Be willing to use your own department as a testing ground.
Define your organization's overarching objectives. Consider goals in areas like talent acquisition, people management, and workforce management. Establish what you want to achieve through a skills-based approach, then link these goals back to broader business objectives.
Network and learn from others. Remember that many organizations are on this journey. Reach out to peers and industry contacts to learn about their best practices. While their specific approaches may not directly apply to your situation, they can provide valuable insights and boost your confidence. And don't forget to enjoy the process along the way.

Learn more — Workforce Intelligence Guide: A Skills-Based Deployment and Adoption Plan

Final Thoughts

Jesuthasan wrapped up with two powerful quotes emphasizing the importance of adaptability and diverse skill sets in the future of work. First, he cited Alvin Toffler's prediction that the "illiterate of the 21st century" will be those unable to learn, unlearn, and relearn. He then reframed the "Jack of all trades" concept as a strength in today's complex work environment.

Slide from presentation about skills with quotes

Both were impactful enough to keep me thinking about his key message: in the skills-powered organization of the future, continuous learning and the ability to apply diverse skills will be crucial for success.

To learn more about how skills are changing — and how you can keep up — check out our State of Skills 2024 Market Data Report

Jenn Thomas