GP Strategies

Session Focus: Change management tips for starting the journey to integrated skills-based talent practices

In today's rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of transitioning towards a skills-based model. However, this transformation goes beyond simply creating skill taxonomies; it requires a profound shift in organizational rules, processes, and mindsets. As Matt aptly stated during the session, "What is the work output and the work production that we have? I think a lot of times we start from the large taxonomy side...but there was always a gap between skills definition to actual work product."

This session highlighted three crucial takeaways for organizations embarking on this journey:
1. Transitioning to a skills-based model requires fundamentally rewriting many organizational rules, processes, and mindsets – it's a profound change.
2. The focus should be on aligning skills to actual work outputs and business goals, not just creating skill taxonomies.
3. Change management for this transition has to go far beyond just communications – it needs to be deeply embedded, multi-pronged, and geared towards a profound mindset shift.
As organizations navigate this transformation, it becomes increasingly evident that a comprehensive change management strategy is imperative. Change management can no longer be synonymous with a mere communications strategy; instead, it must be ingrained throughout the organization, addressing the unique needs and perspectives of various stakeholders, from leadership to individual employees.

The session emphasized the importance of fostering an open mindset and embracing the "Wild West" of the future of work. By aligning skills with actual work outputs and business goals, organizations can unlock the true potential of their workforce and remain competitive in an ever-changing environment.

Embark on this journey with a holistic approach, ensuring that change management is woven into every aspect of the transition, from redefining job roles and performance management to enabling better manager-employee conversations around skills. Only then can organizations truly harness the power of a skills-based model and thrive in the era of continuous adaptation.

Do SKILLS Need a Comprehensive CHANGE MANAGEMENT Strategy?

engagement &amp; culture

Strategy

dirk.tussing

newton.moore

richard.busby

Change Management

brian.steinberg

edward.desrosiers

learning &amp; development

matt.donovan

todd.tauber

Talent Strategy

employee engagement

organizational change

durable skills

jennifer.rainey

megan.bickle

skills development

organizational skills

Skills Gaps

gordon.ritchie

skill integration

HR transformation

employee commitment

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy

Zurich North America

Session Focus: Creating a skills-based future by integrating talent Practices


Creating an empowering environment that engages employees as active participants is critical for building an authentic skills-driven workforce. This Learning Circle session, Creating a More Skills-based Future, emphasized three key takeaways:
1) Provide employee autonomy in driving skills growth, not just top-down assigned training. "Managing skills from the bottom up, giving employees the ability to stretch their own skill profiles," stated panelist Karl Weston.
2) Enable meaningful skills development through practice, feedback, and experiential opportunities beyond just accessing content. "People need opportunities to practice, get feedback, experience, repetition," noted Brian Richardson.
3) Integrate personalized coaching. "The minute we engaged career coaches, we saw higher engagement and retention rates," shared Geovanny Andino.
While skills architecture, taxonomies and measurement are vital, the panelists highlighted the importance of a human-centric, empowering culture. Balancing technical components with empowerment, enablement and coaching is key.

Building a skills-driven workforce requires more than just implementing technology. It demands holistic environments that inspire employees to own their growth while providing support structures. An empowering culture, not an impersonal competency system, is the goal.

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | Creating a More Skills-based Future

evidence-based research

future of work

Integrated Talent Management

Future of Work

Digital &amp; AI

kyle.swanson

organizational readiness

geovanny.andino

power skills

critical thinking

Learning Agility

skills​

skillsforthefuture

future of learning

flexibility

internal talent marketplace

personalization of skills

brian.richardson

karl.weston

james.griffin

Microsoft

Session Focus: Tips for starting and integrating skills-based talent practices

As organizations look to become more agile and competitive, adopting skills-based talent practices is becoming a strategic priority. But as Shweta Srivastava, Global Skills Leader at Microsoft, shared: "There's no perfect solution here and every company has its own journey based on what problems you are trying to solve and what you're prioritizing what your data architecture looks like and all of that."
In this insightful session on integrating a comprehensive skills strategy, Srivastava outlined Microsoft's approach and key learning so far. Here are three key takeaways:

<ol class="list-decimal pl-8 space-y-2">
 	<li class="whitespace-normal">Developing a comprehensive skills strategy requires understanding and aligning to the specific business problems, priorities and data architecture of your organization. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.</li>
 	<li class="whitespace-normal">Getting accurate data on employees' skills and proficiency levels is critical, but challenging. Using technology for skills inference rather than assessments may be preferable.</li>
 	<li class="whitespace-normal">A skills-based approach cuts across multiple talent practices, so broad organizational change management is needed, including establishing a common skills nomenclature and determining governance models.</li>
</ol>
The session covered Microsoft's journey starting with building a robust job architecture mapped to critical skills. The next focus is prioritizing important capabilities aligned with business strategy and organizing granular skills into hierarchies. Major workstreams include unlocking workforce skills data, building a skills ontology, enabling skills-based talent cycles, and change management.
Srivastava emphasized there are no perfect answers, as companies need to experiment based on their unique challenges. The presentation shared valuable insights into taking a comprehensive, integrated approach to skills strategy.

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | How to Start

shweta.srivastava

jesse.james

anton.maletich

Korn Ferry

Alter Domus

Session Focus: Panel of Talent leaders discussing key areas to focus on for successful integration of skills-based talent practices.
Developing a comprehensive, sustainable skills strategy aligned with business objectives is a critical but complex undertaking for organizations. In this insightful panel discussion, talent leaders shared their experiences and perspectives on key focus areas for successfully integrating skills-based talent practices.
One of the biggest challenges highlighted was finding the right level of granularity when mapping skills. As Anton Maletich pointed out, "The challenge is not only what's the appropriate level of detail to ensure people are thinking about this consistently and that it covers what people would expect to see and then the other piece is if we go to that level of detail are we going to be able to address that right?"
The panelists reinforced three key takeaways for participants:

<ol class="list-decimal pl-8 space-y-2">
 	<li class="whitespace-normal">Align skills development to critical business goals and priorities first, rather than developing skills programs in a vacuum.</li>
 	<li class="whitespace-normal">Start small by focusing on mapping skills for priority roles/areas, get experience, then evolve and scale the skills strategy over time. Don't try to boil the ocean initially.</li>
 	<li class="whitespace-normal">Use skills mapping to identify opportunities for enhanced career mobility by connecting people across roles that require similar skill sets.</li>
</ol>
The session emphasized that a comprehensive skills strategy is an evolutionary journey, not a one-time exercise. Organizations need to be flexible and iterative in their approach, continuously adapting their skills frameworks as business needs change over time. Starting with high-priority roles and aligning to overarching business strategy can help make this complex undertaking more manageable and impactful.

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | Where you can focus first and why?

talent mobility

jean.ryan

tomas.ramirez

teresa.henderson

talent agility

ellen.foley

ELE Group, LLC

Session Focus: Where is Your Worknet? Skillset, Mindset, Toolset, The Next Rules of Work with Gary Bolles

 It’s no longer about best practices; the world benefits from NEXT Practices.

<img class="alignnone wp-image-37652 lazyautosizes ls-is-cached lazyloaded" src="https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles.jpeg" sizes="779px" srcset="https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles.jpeg 200w, https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles-60x60.jpeg 60w, https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles-141x141.jpeg 141w" alt="Gary A. Bolles" width="35" height="35" data-src="https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles.jpeg" data-srcset="https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles.jpeg 200w, https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles-60x60.jpeg 60w, https://www.learningexecutive.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Gary-A.-Bolles-141x141.jpeg 141w" data-sizes="auto" />  A conversation and Q&amp;A with Gary Bolles, who spent the last year meeting with leaders and organizations across the globe discussing the findings in his book, <a href="https://www.learningexecutive.com/book/next-rules-of-work/?author=gary-bolles">The Next Rules of Work</a>. During his round-the-globe trip, much of it in person, Gary started designing “The Next Rules of Work Plus.” That is what happens when the feedback and questions you receive along the way build upon your body of work.

This session will kick off with a firestarter talk that includes what he learned from real-life applications of his model, followed by a few questions, and then the gates are open to your questions. Gary will be available for 30 minutes or more to your questions.

💥 Watch <a href="https://www.learningexecutive.com/moments/internal-talent-marketplaces-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-skills-based-enterprise/">Internal Talent Marketplaces are the Tip of the Iceberg</a>. “To move to a skill-based enterprise, you need to rewrite all the rules of an organization”–Ravin Jesuthasan. 

<img class="aligncenter wp-image-37731" src="https://wp.ele.llc/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Next-Rules-of-Work-Gary-Bolles.jpg" alt="Next Rules of Work - Gary Bolles" width="483" height="276" />

&nbsp;

Gary discovered:

✅ Multiple case studies of organizations and municipalities have applied some new rules. He will share a few.

✅ Followers of the “Next Rules” embrace a different mindset. Individual workers contribute creative solutions to complex problems and pursue their responsibilities.

✅ Employees no longer focus only on completing predictable assignments. Modern employees mix and match the stability of a day job, the uncertainty of gig work, and the gamble of launching a start-up.

✅ Managers no longer act as the center of all workplace knowledge. Instead, they’re guides (coaches) who help workers achieve their goals.

✅ Frontline employees act as co-equal teammates – partners in a fluid and flexible business environment.

&nbsp;

About the Author:
Gary A. Bolles, chair of the future of work at Singularity University and a partner at Charette LLC, a San Francisco consulting firm, co-founded eParachute.com – inspired by his father’s best-selling classic, <a href="https://www.learningexecutive.com/book/what-color-is-your-parachute-2022-your-guide-to-a-lifetime-of-meaningful-work-and-career-success/?author=gary-bolles">What Color Is Your Parachute</a>?

If you are looking for skills-based conversation starter tools for frontline managers, the “Flower Exercise” is a popular tool from Gary’s father’s book. <a href="https://content.randomhouse.com/assets/9781607743644/pdfs/Untitled%20Extract%20Pages.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Click here to download as a PDF</a> excerpt from “What Color Is Your Parachute? 2014” by Richard N. Bolles.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37732" src="https://wp.ele.llc/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Flower-Exercise-What-Color-is-Your-Parachute.jpg" alt="Flower Exercise - What Color is Your Parachute" width="596" height="703" />

&nbsp;

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | Integrating Talent Practices with Gary Bolles

Do SKILLS Need a Comprehensive CHANGE MANAGEMENT Strategy?

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | Creating a More Skills-based Future

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | How to Start

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | Where you can focus first and why?

Skills Need a Comprehensive Strategy | Integrating Talent Practices with Gary Bolles

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