Skills
Over the last two and half years, the workplace has witnessed dramatic changes. One of those begs the question: are we witnessing the great shift towards a skills-based organization? Are jobs essentially "dead?" If you ask Michael Griffiths, Senior Partner, Principal, and Lead in Deloitte's Workforce Transformation Practice, he believes we are moving in just that direction.
Griffiths states, "The boundaries for the organization—both how you engage with your workforce and who your workforce is—are kind of disappearing." There are several elements to this movement. One of those has to do with organizations using their employees in a much more agile way.
"We are finding that people are able to bring their skills [to work] and then have adjacent skills identified for life and work as being a part of the conversation of how to match their skills to their work," he says. The other facet of Griffiths's point is our need to understand how to utilize skills throughout the organization. Going forward, organizations should do a better job of matching people's skills to jobs or, ideally, to projects and opportunities. Ultimately, the organization will need to use the composite skills data of its team members to devise an entirely new talent process mechanism.
I wanted to know how organizations might reorganize their work if we remain stuck in our current and archaic era of job descriptions. Michael shared, "You cannot make the change to skills if you don't have your work defined in more of an agile way. Work outcomes need to be defined and broken down into that structure, rather than old orchestrations around job architecture driving into roles, projects, etc. You have to get your data around work at the lowest democratized level possible, and then you can match skills to it. That then makes you able to move to a skills-based organization."
Have we reached that point in our organizations whereby, instead of skills and talent being employee-driven and defined solely on their resumes to become employer-driven?
"I think it's a cultural change we are on the journey for," says Griffiths. "I think the world has moved to push organizations to flip."
My analysis would indicate that we are amidst a chicken-and-egg scenario. Do we have to define skills first, or do we have to formulate the workforce strategy of how skills reformat into jobs, gigs, or opportunities inside the organization itself?
"Your talent strategy has to have a business line and metrics you can go after," says Griffiths. He also built off my metaphor rather cleverly. "You have to build the chicken as the egg is being created. The first egg probably won't be great, but you start learning how the chicken can make better eggs," he added.
Based on his research and findings, we might call the egg 'Research' and the chicken
'Infrastructure.' What, then, does the transformation to a skills-based organization look like, and how does it occur?
"You have to create value for the individual and see the person for their skills, not what they look like," says Griffiths. "Take out bias and create a transparent marketplace where people can see opportunities as they go and then get matched."
It reminded me of a recent Forbes interview with author Ravin Jesuthasan. He said, "How are we envisioning our talent experience so that we are meeting people on their individual terms as opposed to forcing them to fit our 'one size fits most' model?"
Second, Griffiths suggests that while 98% of organizations indicate they want to shift towards skills-based work and 90% are actively experimenting with the eggs (skills-based approaches), only one in five are adopting skills-based practices to extend across the organization. Thus, the skills infrastructure (ahem, the chicken) is not exactly taking flight.
Perhaps we need first to define skills as a term. Learning that Deloitte has recommended the creation of a Skills Hub, I asked him to explain more.
"We have a definition of skills in our research," he said, "which I think is the starting point." Griffiths indicated that Deloitte defines it as technical abilities, human capabilities, and professional or adjacent skills. But he also mentioned the need for a taxonomy to keep things straight. "A taxonomy is as simple as your competencies, capabilities, and attributes or performance traits."
As I've noted in this column numerous times, purpose is needed inside and outside the organization. So how do skills help the concept of purpose and human centricity? "Skills enable you to see the whole person," Griffiths says. "The skills-based organizations are 79% more likely to have a positive workforce environment experience."
That's one more reason to shout out' purpose for the win' from the hilltops. In this case, purpose is linked directly to a skills-based organizational culture.
Griffiths left me with this, "I think that if you can move into this type of workforce experience, you're delivering purpose by definition."
Time will tell how quickly organizations not only link purpose to skills but how seamless they make the transition to a skills-based organization as a systemic part of its operating culture.
Watch the interview with Michael Griffiths and Dan Pontefract in full below or listen to it via the Leadership NOW series podcast.
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