Moving Your Organizational Strategy from Jobs to Skills | Deloitte Insights

Talent management practitioners continue to reimagine their organizations’ talent practices based on skills rather than fixed, static jobs. I have shared various thoughts and resources that comprehensively describe why this shift is taking place, including Ravin Jesuthasan’s and John Boudreau’s excellent book–Work Without Jobs: How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System. But shifting to skills-based talent practices can take time, especially considering that many organizations lack insights into the skills of their workforce. One survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) of over 1,300 HR and business executives found that 53 percent of respondents said their organizations have insufficient data about the current skills of their workers. To gauge the extent to which organizations are successfully shifting to skills-based talent practices, Deloitte asked 125 HR and 100 business executives worldwide to share their views. The results show that most executives report their organizations are integrating skills (at least to some extent) across eight talent practices, ranging from career development to performance management. However, only a few—somewhere between 15 percent (workforce planning) and 30 percent (careers), are using skill-based practices to a significant extent. These results suggest organizations are making inroads into becoming more skills-based but still have a way to go until skill-based talent practices fully take hold. The article’s infographic shows the eight talent practices and provides a “to and from” comparison of how organizations are incorporating skills into each practice.