Gaining a Skills Edge Through Agile Talent Practices: From Pandemic to Permanence | Mercer

Firms are increasingly defining work by skills and tasks rather than just jobs and roles. And, one reason for deconstructing work from the job level to the skills and/or task level is to provide firms with greater flexibility in meeting changing business needs. (A more in-depth review of these reasons has been covered by thought leaders such as Ravin Jesuthasan and John Boudreau (Work Without Jobs) and Dave Ulrich (From Workforce to Work-task Planning). This 16-page report by Mercer offers a few ideas on implementing an agile, skills-based talent model by utilizing AI-based technology and leveraging its internal talent marketplace. Throughout the report, the blue boxes include a range of questions that practitioners can ask within this context. A few questions include: 1) How are we using technology to enable the skills profiling process and keep it up to date? 2) What could we accomplish if we had insights into the skills and knowledge across our employees and contingent workforce population? 3) What performance goals will incentivize a team or business unit to share talent internally? Page 12 includes a visual of the different use cases (for such an approach) across various talent practices. Since jobs/roles have been the predominant foundation on which various talent practices are based, the resources mentioned in this post can help firms begin to explore and test a skills-based/task approach.