In people operations, employing a strategy that brings out the best in your workforce is crucial. Skills are a hot commodity in the labor market more than ever, and firms are turning to skills-based hiring to fill their talent needs.
Can your company attract and retain the skills required to meet customer expectations? A 2024 report by Springboard for Business reveals that 70% of leaders say the performance of their business has suffered due to employees lacking the required competencies.
That said, it’s one thing for an organization to lack specific skills, and it’s another to be blind to the variety and abundance of skills it already has. This stresses the importance of skills and competencies mapping to bridge gaps. More notably, it underscores the need for companies to make reskilling a core strategy in human resource development.
Why has reskilling become an imperative in people operations? Read on to learn about companies’ skills-based approach and why reskilling provides an edge to those who make it their focus.
The Emergence of Skills-Based Hiring
Since the beginning of the 2010s, organizations have veered away from requiring high educational attainment, such as a college degree or a master’s in their job postings. This trend has continued, as nearly half of 800 U.S. companies surveyed by Intelligent.com say they plan to remove bachelor’s degree requirements for some positions. From the same survey, it’s worth noting that 4 in 5 employers value experience over education when evaluating job candidates.
Employers from both the private and public sectors are riding this wave. Instead of putting up a wall with a sign that says you need a bachelor’s degree to get to the other side, employers are adopting skills-based hiring.
What is a skills-based approach?
In people operations, adopting a skills-based approach means recognizing that competencies become the foundation of responding to a changing business environment. Viewed through this lens, recruiting for workforce growth is seen as acquiring skills while aligning teams to accomplish a specific goal is seen as mobilizing skills.
And if a client or customer comes in with novel requirements, companies can also turn to upskilling their current team members to fill any skills gaps. This was prevalent due to the unique conditions brought by COVID-19, as 40% of 32,500 surveyed workers said they had successfully improved their digital skills during the pandemic.
Companies have turned to skills-based hiring to adapt rapidly to technological developments and manage risk in a volatile economic landscape. But as a primary requirement when using this approach, professionals in people operations must be able to map its organization’s skills.
Why is skills mapping important?
In skills management, identifying and tracking employees’ skills is a prerequisite to mapping those skills to specific roles within the business. Once HR professionals have completed this analysis, the next step is to measure employees’ effectiveness in using their skills to respond to changes in the market.
Skills mapping has gained traction due to many factors, such as the democratization of work, advancements in AI, and tremendous uncertainty. Organizations need to identify the essential skills that will move their business forward. Once they have determined those core skills—aside from the costlier choice to acquire talent or the riskier option to outsource—they can rely on reskilling their workers to meet any skills gaps.
Why Reskilling Is a Strategic Advantage in People Operations
The impact of AI and other advancements in tech cannot be ignored
In the last couple of years, companies leading the charge in the swift development of AI technology have shown us its immense potential for disrupting work. Generative AI, for example, has reached a level where it can augment the work of creatives, such as UX professionals, graphic designers, and content writers. While even the latest releases of AI tech are still riddled with glaring weaknesses, such as bias, hallucinations, and inaccuracies, its overall impact can’t be overlooked.
That said, not all companies will need a huge portion of their workforce to become AI engineers. However, the impact of AI tech highlights the need for companies to invest in talent development. This is where reskilling must transition from a prerogative to a necessity. To retain relevant talent, those in people operations must develop and execute programs that address the impact of AI.
Some companies are already taking the initiative, and a few examples include the following:
- Infosys: Reskilled over 2,000 cybersecurity experts with various adjacent competencies and capability levels.
- Amazon: Turned thousands of inexperienced employees into machine learning experts.
- McDonald’s: Enables access to the app ‘Archways to Opportunity,’ which provides employees with possible career paths based on skills learned on the job.
- ICICI Bank: Reskills 2,500 – 4,000 employees each year by running an academy-like reskilling program.
Advancements in tech aren’t new. Companies that are proactive in reskilling efforts and have a fine-tuned system will have a leg up against competitors who remain reactive to market shifts.
Employees are eager to reskill to remain competitively employed
Reskilling takes a lot of effort, both from those implementing it and the people participating in the program. Another roadblock to reskilling is that the outcome isn’t guaranteed.
Data suggests that workers might be more willing to enlist themselves in reskilling programs than previously thought. Nearly 70% of workers know impending disruptions in their fields and are eager to reskill to stay competitively employed. This insight from Boston Consulting Group also indicates that employees are more willing to reskill when the benefits of their involvement are made clear.
Workers are also more likely to participate in a company’s reskilling program if they understand the reason behind it and if they have a role in creating it. A large auto parts manufacturer, for example, told its diesel engineers that they had a declining need for their skills because of changes in the industry. The manufacturer was able to get their workers sold on the program since it was presented as a way to ensure that they would have job security in the years ahead.
Reskilling opens up industry partnerships and widens the talent pool
While seeing a company-wide initiative in reskilling is admirable, the program doesn’t have to be confined within the organization. Similar to how government agencies tap NGOs and the private sector to deliver large-scale services, private companies can work together.
Since the year 2000, the National Skills Coalition (NSC), a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C., has brought companies together to benefit a broad range of workers and businesses. This coalition of companies works through public investment and has built networks representing businesses, workers, colleges, communities, public officials, and advocates. They continue to engage these networks to craft policy proposals that aim to make actual policy changes.
In the Philippines, the Philippine Services Coalition (PSC) represents the country in the Asia-Pacific Services Coalition (APSCo). The APSCo, formed in 2015, is the world’s largest coalition of services industries. The APSCo aims to foster growth and efficiency in all service sectors through trade and investment, innovations and skills development, and pro-growth regulation in all APEC countries.
When it comes to crafting a reskilling program, your company doesn’t have to build it from the ground up. Joining a network of companies committed in developing their workforce is a sensible starting point. Companies who join these networks know that, ultimately, it’s a win-win when workers, even if they aren’t employees, have access to resources that deepen and broaden their competencies.
Thriving in the Skills Economy
Workers are increasingly aware of the “skills shift” in the labor marketplace. Most are also keen on acquiring new relevant skills to stay employable in the near future. However, to succeed in the skills economy, workers must carefully consider their desired career path and break down the skills needed to prosper.
Thus, in the skills economy, workplaces are also expected to provide their employees with opportunities to prioritize preferred skills. Employees will jump on the chance to earn micro-credentials and certificates if it enables them to set themselves apart.
Managers who use Payruler can focus on supporting team members in their upskilling goals. With the capability to schedule team members, monitor attendance, and approve various requests all through one online platform, leaders are freed up with time and bandwidth to map their respective members’ skills. They can then provide adequate inputs to management regarding career planning that benefits both the business and the workers involved.
Your Organization’s Skills All in One Place
Reskilling is becoming a crucial part of every organization’s overall business strategy. However, when it comes to equipping your workers with new skills, the principle of you can’t manage what you can’t measure rings true. Skills management is only possible when your organization can trust the information it has on your employees’ work experience, credentials, and preferences. Therefore, reskilling can only be truly effective when you have seamless access to employee data.
With Payruler’s comprehensive employee portal, you can delegate the manual work of managing your employees’ information. This allows you to have all your skills in one place, eliminating the need to maintain data in other areas and then reconcile entries from scattered spreadsheets.
Leverage the capability to automate the production of reports: access real-time analytics and download over 70 standard reports across all core modules.
Are you ready to know more? Book a personalized demo with our team, or message us at hello@payruler.com.