Skills have become the new currency of work. Companies are adopting learning and development strategies and evolving HR practices to get skills-ready. In advance of Mindbeat’s upcoming virtual event, Mike Fletcher looks at the skills economy.
For the past 140 years, the world of work has been organised around jobs in functional hierarchies. This ‘job-centricity’ has been the main mechanism governing how talent is connected to the workplace, how work is deployed, and how organisations are structured.
However, these comfortably familiar boxes have been disintegrating since before the pandemic.
Today, remote working, economic volatility, accelerated digital transformation and the disruption caused by AI-powered automation have changed the workplace forever.
A recent McKinsey Global Institute survey found that 87% of companies worldwide are already experiencing skill gaps or are expecting to within the next five years. This is likely to impact both productivity and competitiveness at a corporate and national level.
Leaders must ask themselves whether or not their employees are skilled enough to adapt to the future of work. And if they’re not, how will they acquire or develop the skill sets necessary to thrive in this fourth industrial age?
Embracing this ‘skills economy’ is now business critical. Research from Deloitte shows that companies applying skills-based models to meet the demand for agility and equity are 107% more likely to place talent effectively, 52% more likely to innovate, and 57% more likely to anticipate change and respond effectively and efficiently.
It means placing individual skills – the skills organisations have and need, and their ability to acquire new ones – at the forefront of decision-making, while challenging the significance of traditional credentials and job titles.
A skills-based approach to talent and professional development focuses on what people are capable of learning, rather than more arbitrary factors such as job roles, degrees and contracts.
But how do you transition from a traditional job-based model to a skills-based organisation?
On 30 May at 1 pm (BST), Mindbeat’s CEO, Elisa Krantz will host a virtual event where she’ll interview Tanju Kapilashrami, Chief Strategy and Talent Officer at Standard Chartered Bank to learn more about her experience and understand some of the learnings from Standard Chartered’s journey from jobs to skills. Tanju will also provide actionable advice for CHROs and HR leaders looking to build a skills-powered future.
Until then, consider the three steps below.
To learn more, don’t forget to register for your place at our Powering High Performance through Skills and AI event by clicking the link at the end.
Step One: Develop a culture of learning and skills development
Tanju Kapilashrami talks about organisations being the custodians of skills. To achieve this, promote continuous learning and provide workplace opportunities for upskilling, reskilling and internal mobility.
Standard Chartered has achieved this by creating an internal gig economy where people who have projects that need doing can ask for help via an AI-powered marketplace. Anyone within the organisation can offer their skills and sign up for a gig as part of a reskilling journey or practical real-life experience.
Step Two: Disrupt traditional notions of performance ratings and reviews
Standard Chartered has moved away from past performance being a predictor of someone’s potential. It now looks at learning agility and skills as the main predictor for future potential.
As employees acquire more skills, it makes them more employable and provides more opportunities to work in different areas of the banking organisation.
This results in higher levels of internal deployment versus external hiring, which in turn can save a company money.
Step Three: Consider the changing future of skills
A recent study by LinkedIn found that requested skills for jobs have changed by 25% since 2015 and are expected to change by 50% over the next three years.
Over time, the skills your business needs, the combination of skills required in specific roles and individuals, and your employees’ interests will change.
Strategy and AI-powered technology investment to track shifting trends and re-align skill-set requirements over time is vital.
To learn more from Tanju Kapilashrami, Chief Strategy and Talent Officer at Standard Chartered Bank, register today for Powering High Performance through Skills and AI.
