Four Steps Organizations Must Take to launch a skills-forward talent strategy

In today’s environment of unrelenting business transformation, roles are shifting quickly, and skills are becoming obsolete faster.

Your organization needs to identify, acquire, and develop the skills needed to transform, compete in new markets, and thrive. Developing a skills-forward talent strategy can help you unite people growth with business success.

People want to do meaningful work and understand their career opportunities. Organizations must help employees feel capable, secure, and connected to their careers and to the company’s mission and goals.

Embed learning and development into your culture

Learning must be part of who you are as an organization. That means encouraging the behaviors that lead to success:

1. Democratize access to skills.

2. Reward those who play a part.

3. Create a culture for learning agility.

Help employees identify new skills- and how they apply to your organization and industry

Employees need to understand how new skills are applied to the present and future of their organization and the broader aspects of how it impacts their industry. So, organizations need to:

1. Enable better conversations about skills.

2. Create unique learning paths.

3. Develop adjacent skills.

Let AI do some of the heavy lifting

Artificial intelligence (AI) is recognized as a game-changing factor for HR — offering the potential to increase HR scalability, recognize patterns in people’s behavior and offer personalized support where and when needed. Turning this AI potential into reality doesn’t come without challenges, such as ensuring ethical and unbiased use, addressing data privacy and security concerns, and accurately interpreting complex HR data to generate valuable people insights. Given these challenges, it’s no surprise that adoption of AI in people growth functions is slow.

Employees and Companies Must Work Together in the Reskilling Revolution

The world of work has changed forever, and your employees are painfully aware of the effects.

Organizational talent leaders have the power to make a difference in the lives of their people. We encourage you to use the challenges of the past 18 months as an opportunity to improve and enhance development programs and cultural practices. You have a unique chance to reboot behaviors and norms in your organization for the better, by reskilling and upskilling employees to thrive in this uncertain future.

Learn more about the steps organizations must take to launch a skills-forward talent strategy, download Cornerstone research here!