Category: Blog

At our recent Powering High Performance through Skills and AI webinar, Mindbeat’s CEO, Elisa Krantz interviewed 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. 

Why are traditional job-centric models becoming obsolete and why do you think skill-centric approaches are the future?

For the last 140 years, work has been organised around jobs. It has been driven by a one-to-one relationship between workers and their roles. With the acceleration of technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, how talent connects to their work and how organisations are set up doesn’t seem relevant anymore. 

A couple of years ago, we started talking about skills being the new currency of work and HR professionals being the custodians of skills, not jobs. What would happen if you deconstruct work and flow talent around skills rather than roles? What would be the impact on productivity or an individual’s career? 

There’s the obvious link here to productivity and performance within companies but it also impacts the increasing gap between education and employability.

Education institutions aren’t producing the skills required for the future of work. So what role should businesses play in bridging the skills gap? And, more importantly, what skills will we need for the future of work?

It will be a combination of technical and human-centric skills that will help us make the most of this fourth industrial revolution. 

How has a legacy organisation like Standard Chartered transitioned to become more skills-based?

We are a 160-year-old bank headquartered in the UK, with 100,000 employees across emerging markets. Our pivot to become more skills-based couldn’t start with a blank sheet of paper in a start-up environment. We’re a legacy organisation with a complex construct of roles and reporting lines. So we started with the idea of jobs. 

We analysed jobs that would disappear in three and five years, along with emerging roles created by shifts in technology and business models. Then we looked at those emerging roles and the likely skills needed to do them. 

We discovered it would be $45,000 cheaper to reskill someone into a future role instead of recruiting new talent. For the first time, it set an economic case for reskilling.

It led to our analysis of skills adjacencies where we proved that we already had 80% of the skills required for future jobs in the company, which meant we only had to invest in reskilling for the remaining 20%. 

During this process, we launched a talent marketplace where people with multiple skills could work on different gigs internally. The gigs are advertised and anyone with the required skills can volunteer their time to be part of a new, exciting piece of work. People who want to be part of exciting, purposeful work that will keep them relevant for the future of work are genuinely interested in participating. 

We now have a talent marketplace in 50 markets. There are 28,000 people, actively matching their skills to purposeful and impactful work and upskilling in areas they’d like to grow their careers in. It has led to Skills Academies and Standard Chartered hiring based on skills. But it has also changed the language of the company away from job descriptions and reliance on experience to future-facing skills and how to source those skills. 

When I meet CEOs I ask them: ‘How much coding skills do you have within your legacy business?’ They’ll answer by only telling me how many engineers they have. Most legacy businesses can’t tell you how much technology skills, coding skills, and data skills they have because the inventory has always been mapped based on jobs rather than available skills. 

The moment you start recognising the skills that individuals bring to the table, you’re able to unlock a huge amount of productivity. 

How do you measure the success of this skills-focused transition?

The success of the program is clear. We report in monetary terms every quarter on how much productivity we’ve unlocked in the company. We tell the stories of innovation, delivered by crowdsourcing skills for company-wide projects. Plus, we track internal deployment rates for future jobs versus hiring costs and high-performer attrition rates. 

I understand you’ve also now removed performance ratings at Standard Chartered

I’ve believed for many years that traditional performance ratings only manage the year-end bonus process and give senior management an excuse for why someone hasn’t hit their targets. Performance ratings don’t build high-performance cultures because they remove honest two-way conversations and relegate everyone to a score.

We want to build a culture of continuous feedback and learning. A skills-based organisation can’t grow without a deep learning culture, a strong sense of curiosity, and a two-way feedback process.   

It’s our third year without performance ratings. We know that where leaders are engaged in regular feedback conversations, where objectives are clear, and where people have access to real-time coaching, satisfaction with performance management has increased significantly. 

Many of the jobs of the future will require AI-based skills. What are your views on AI and its impact?

I see technology and AI-backed solutions as a massive opportunity to democratise, access and deliver at scale. What we’ve achieved with our talent marketplace wouldn’t have been possible without AI for example.

As machines get better at being machines, humans can get better at being humans. If you deploy technology well, you can augment humans to focus on the stuff that only humans can do. Everything else can be automated. 

Our poll asked for the biggest challenge of moving from a job-centric to a skills-powered organisation. Time and making this a priority above other priorities got almost half the vote. Do you agree?

Making it a priority over other priorities is critical. If you don’t take action now when the workforce is fundamentally changed in the future, it will be expensive and you’ll be less inclusive as ‘sunset’ jobs employ more women. Prioritising a skills-based future will overcome these issues. 

What have been your biggest learnings from Standard Chartered’s skills-based journey?

I have learned a lot about effective change management. That’s been my big upskilling. I grew up in a world where effective change management was writing good communications, so I’ve had to upskill myself on what good change management looks like.

It’s a real skill, and it’s a discipline. In large organisations, the amount of time, senior leader bandwidth and investment in change management needs to change.

Early on, we spent too much time trying to convert the hearts and minds of the most senior people in the business. But the people who drive real change are leaders deep into the company. They may be fairly junior but can harness the power of your workforce. The more you democratise conversations, the more you’ll find change agents and ambassadors at different levels who can lean in and support you in driving cultural change. 

To watch the full recording of Elisa’s interview with Tanju Kapilashrami, email [email protected]

The Malteese telecommunications provider, GO, recognises the unique challenges of balancing a career and motherhood, especially for first-time mothers. 

That’s why the company’s GO Academy and Wellbeing Team recently teamed up with Mindbeat and one of our specialist parental transition coaches to design a programme to empower and support the company’s new mums as they navigate their return to the workplace. 

Here’s what Giovanella, Business Specialist – Soho, shared about her coaching journey: “Having so much to catch up on upon my return, coaching was the last thing I needed to add to my plate. However, it turned out to be the complete opposite. Coaching is what helped me deal with what I had on my plate!”

A change in business strategy can often trigger redundancies. Mike Fletcher looks at how coaching can support both managers and those leaving an organisation and ease the transition process. 

Facing up to uncertain economic headwinds, many organisations are switching tack. 

According to a Mindheat survey of almost 200 companies across four sectors (IT, Financial Services, Pharma and Energy), fast-growing companies are swapping revenue and user growth at any cost, for higher expectations around profitability and long-term business sustainability. For many, this means consolidation and change. 

Handled well, change can produce the intended outcome of a more streamlined and profitable business. However, if handled poorly, change can cause long-lasting damage to workplace morale, trust, and a business’s bottom line.

The science underscores the negative consequences of badly handled change. For example, necessary redundancies can create ripple effects throughout an organisation. Productivity may decline and the risk of losing valued remaining colleagues increases. This resulting atmosphere of uncertainty and lowered morale can severely hinder an organisation’s ability to move forward effectively.

Investing in coaching support for managers tasked with communicating anticipated and real changes impacting roles is therefore crucial. 

Four ways coaching helps manage the transition process

1. It helps those managing the redundancy process to understand the likely concerns and questions that colleagues around them may have.
2. It ensures that their methods of communication are appropriate, uncomfortable conversations are handled sensitively, and difficult messages are delivered with empathy and clarity.
3. For those being made redundant, organisations have a duty of care to minimise any detrimental impact on employees’ self-worth, identity and well-being. 
4. ‘Outplacement’ or as we call it, ‘Career Transition’ helps people come to terms with what has happened. It helps them to understand their priorities (values, drivers, and responsibilities), and identify their desired future direction of travel and how best to move forward.

Coaching is fundamentally all about helping people through change. Career Transition is a coaching service Mindbeat provides for employees leaving a business due to organisational restructuring to help them prepare and transition into new roles with greater focus, confidence and success. 

It could be anything from career guidance and setting future goals to more practical approaches such as interview techniques, CV writing and how to build someone’s personal brand. 

Our coaches have deep experience in supporting individuals navigating organisational restructuring. They’re trained to provide a safe space for your people to come to terms with job loss and turn what can feel like a challenging and disempowering circumstance into an opportunity to refocus, own and activate new career transitions. 

This investment in development not only eases the immediate crisis but also demonstrates a level of respect and care by the organisation, which can go a long way in maintaining employee engagement, productivity, loyalty and trust in the organisation’s leadership going forward. 

When managers are given the right coaching tools to support everyone’s well-being during this stressful time, they are empowered to motivate and retain their remaining team members while giving departing colleagues every chance of future success. 

Get in touch today to discuss career transition coaching with Mindbeat, 

In today’s high-stakes talent landscape, the true competitive edge isn’t found in “hard” skills.

It lies in the often underestimated, so-called “soft” skills.

They’re not merely ‘soft’, these are the strategic “power” skills that are not the “nice-to-haves” but the “must” haves.

The skills that fuel innovation, drive forward momentum, and elevate a team from functional to exceptional.

These critical, human-centric attributes can’t be coded, but they define the game-changers.

The “soft” becomes even more relevant for leaders in an organisation, do you see them as optional or essential?

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. 

It’s more than shared targets, it’s shared moments and authentic recognition.

Five things high-performing teams do differently:

1️⃣ 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: They talk—a lot. Replacing texts with conversations, ensuring that nuances don’t get lost in digital translation. 66% more phone calls than average teams.

2️⃣ 𝗠𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲: Every meeting has a mission. They’re 39% more likely to prep beforehand and 55% more likely to have a clear agenda. Efficiency isn’t an afterthought. It is their baseline.

3️⃣ 𝗕𝗲𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗱 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘀: These teams know that bonding over non-work topics is 25% more likely to cement relationships that go beyond the office walls. Coffee, anyone?

4️⃣ 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: They’re not shy with ‘thank you’s’. With 72% more appreciation received from colleagues and a whopping 79% more from managers, gratitude is their currency.

𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗻𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 5️⃣ : Vulnerability is not a liability but a strength. It’s all about being genuinely you. Authenticity isn’t just encouraged, it’s expected.

𝗟𝗲𝘁’𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝘀𝗸: Does your team’s culture allow for a quick call to clear the air? Do meetings leave room for personal connection? Is saying “thank you” as habitual as morning coffee? Are members encouraged to be themselves, truly?

In a world where jobs can become obsolete overnight, standing still is no longer an option.

Continuous career growth is the new constant, separating those who thrive from those who get left behind.

Discover Mindbeat Business Development Executive, Vincent Brown’s 11 ways to stay ahead.