Skills-Based Organization Archives - The Future of Work Exchange

The Core Tenets of the Skills-Based Organization

Talent Talent Acquisition by Christopher J. Dwyer on 03/14/2023

The foundational elements of the skills-based organization revolve around the concepts of rethinking the parallels between talent and work; thus, the very future of the skills-based organization depends on forward-thinking strategies, ideas, and, of course technology. Businesses are more likely to thrive in the months and years ahead by adopting a candidate-centric approach to hiring that is skills-based rather than job-based.

The exclusive Future of Work Exchange infographic below, The Core Tenets of the Skills-Based Organization, unveils the six key elements of skills-based organizations and how they impact the greater business (and its staffing, recruitment, and hiring efforts).

Getting Started With Skills-Based Hiring

Events Talent Talent Acquisition by Christopher J. Dwyer on 03/06/2023

The Future of Work Exchange has frequently discussed the advent of the skills-based organization, and rightfully so: Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research finds that 73% of businesses currently face a critical challenge in the months ahead: a lack of candidates with the required skillsets for open positions. This is yet another representation of why the skills-based organization (SBO) is a true opportunity to, essentially, reimagine the ways they think about talent acquisition and the role of talent in getting work done.

The foundational elements of the skills-based organization revolve around the concepts of rethinking the parallels between talent and work; thus, the very future of the skills-based organization depends on forward-thinking strategies, ideas, and, of course, technology. And it all begins with skills-based hiring.

I’m excited to join my friend and fellow Future of Work expert Mark Brodsky on an exclusive Q&A panel discussion on Wednesday, March 15 at 11am ET. The staffing and recruitment expert panel, hosted by innovative skills intelligence platform Glider AI, will address:

Migrating from a job-based to a skills-based hiring strategy.
How to identify the required skills.
How to assess candidate skills.
Evaluating skills-based hiring tools and AI.
Uncovering hidden skills from current employees.
Securing executive and finance stakeholder alignment.

Next week’s event will also feature some brand new Future of Work Exchange research and statistics that will illuminate the criticality of the skills-based organization and its role in the evolving world of talent and work. Join us!

Sustain the Leadership Evolution

Business Leadership Diversity and Inclusion General Insights HR Uncategorized by John Yuva on 02/27/2023

What the previous three years have shown is that enterprises are resilient. The ability to turn on a dime operationally and transform from an in-person to a nearly fully remote workforce is a stunning achievement. It is the ultimate in change management execution, forever altering the Future of Work paradigm and business leadership as we know it. In defining the Future of Work movement, the Future of Work Exchange identified the transformation of business leadership as one of its three critical pillars.

Workplace Humanization Arrives

How has business leadership transformed? Quite simply, leaders today have a newfound focus on “humanity,” and the need to be more talent-oriented to thrive during uncertain times. During the height of the pandemic, there was no separation between how leadership and employees experienced this global event. Everyone went through it together and had similar fears, anxiety, and concern for others. Many leaders recognized this fact and rebooted their workplaces by retaining employee flexibility and remote/hybrid models once the world started to normalize.

Bridging of Human and Skills-Based Objectives

Along with the humanization of the workplace, the need for skills-based talent became apparent as well. The criticality of enterprise agility, flexibility, and business continuity is now a central part of talent acquisition strategies. It is no longer about filling a job role, but rather hiring candidates that bring specific skills and competencies while also being a good cultural match. Business leaders today actively bridge the human aspect with skills-based execution. Understanding, for example, the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion as part of the cultural fabric, leaders have integrated DE&I into hiring and operational objectives.

Business Leadership Evolves

The Future of Work Exchange and Ardent Partners have identified five ways business leadership is evolving.

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The Elements That Will Shape the Skills-Based Organization

Talent Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 02/06/2023

Here’s a phrase that’ll be mentioned many times throughout 2023: the skills-based organization will be the one that thrives during what could be an uneven and uncertain year ahead. Skills is akin to currency in today’s volatile market in such a way that it seemingly creates a have/have not business society. Those with top-tier skills will flourish, and, those who don’t, well…

The latest United States jobs report was rosy from a certain perspective (adding 517,000 jobs in January alone), one that reflects not only the lowest unemployment figures in nearly 55 years, but also an awkward juxtaposition of the discussions around an economic downturn and the continued fight against inflation.

For all the talk about a blooming-yet-complicated job market, there’s another side to this positive news. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research finds that 73% of businesses currently face a critical challenge in the months ahead: a lack of candidates with the required skillsets for open positions. This is yet another representation of why the skills-based organization (SBO) is a true opportunity to, essentially, reimagine the ways they think about talent acquisition and the role of talent in getting work done.

The most progressive way of thinking here is to apply agility-led principles to the realm of talent acquisition and talent engagement by 1) harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to revamp the candidate-matching process, 2) expanding “known” skills taxonomy in an automated manner to account for innovative and future roles, 3) developing a central, on-demand database of skillsets across talent communities (talent pools, talent networks, current employees, etc.), and, 4) leveraging a multi-dimensional nexus of skillsets and expertise from which to address new and evolving requirements based on the trajectory of the greater organization.

The foundational elements of the skills-based organization revolve around the concepts of rethinking the parallels between talent and work; thus, the very future of the skills-based organization depends on forward-thinking strategies, ideas, and, of course technology. Here are the crucial elements that will shape the SBO in the months ahead:

Digital credentialing will emerge as a powerful disruptor in the skills validation market. Even in the technologically-advanced days in which we live, validating skillsets and expertise is largely a manual game. Talent acquisition execs and hiring managers (as well as other core HR leaders) must review portfolios, speak to references, confirm education and backgrounds, etc. to ensure that a candidate holds the proper skillsets for the role in which it is applying. Digital credentialing platforms remove nearly all of the guesswork and the tactical elements of skills validation and provide a veritable gateway into verified skillsets, strengths, certifications, etc. that candidates can maintain throughout the duration of their career. Solutions like Credly, Sertifier, Accredible, and Certifier are revolutionizing both the candidate-facing and hiring-led aspects of digital credentialing.
Blockchain realizes its potential and becomes a gateway for talent. Across the business spectrum, blockchain has so many potential paths: augmenting data warehousing, tightening legal and financial intelligence, and, yes, reinventing the ways enterprises find and connect with talent. In a hyper-competitive and globalized talent marketplace, the power of blockchain truly shines through; by defragmenting traditional barriers to talent acquisition, blockchain-fueled candidate networks enable hiring managers (and similar leaders) with the ability, in real-time, to view candidate profiles, validate expertise, and confirm career data and portfolios. Candidates own their information, and, subsequently, their career pathways, an important factor in today’s labor market from the worker perspective. The speed in which blockchain presents a match and a connection can dwarf that of traditional hiring. Platforms like the non-profit Velocity Network and innovative solution Braintrust are helping businesses reboot their talent strategies.
AI moves firmly into the talent acquisition arena. Artificial intelligence has become, particularly over the past several years, a formidable means of visualizing workforce data through dynamic analytics. Predictive analytics and scenario-building capabilities within workforce management suites and VMS platforms have changed the way HR, procurement, and talent acquisition leaders access total talent intelligence and supercharge their talent-decision making with that data. However, 2023 is the year of AI in talent acquisition; it is imperative that businesses drive real workforce scalability and boost their skills-oriented approach by leveraging artificial intelligence to better validate candidate profiles, enhance skillset-to-job matching, and improve the overall hiring process. Talent acquisition is entering a new, AI-charged era in part because of the advanced technology that can seamlessly streamline the ways businesses not only engage candidates, but also the ways they catalyze the skills-matching experience. Platforms like Opptly represent this exciting new generation of technology, along with solutions like Phenom, Gem, and Gloat, as well as Magnit and both its ENGAGE Talent tool and total talent intelligence offering. Too, solutions such as Glider.ai (robust skills verification and candidate assessment), Fuel50 (recalibrating workforce intelligence), and HiredScore (next-generation, proactive talent-fueled AI) will also disrupt the concept of AI in talent acquisition.

One other factor that could play a pivotal role in the evolution of the skills-based organization is direct sourcing and its impact on digital recruitment, an arena that is founded on the ability to better match open positions with top-tier skillsets. Today’s direct sourcing platforms are a key cog in developing a skills-oriented approach towards talent acquisition, with solutions such as WorkLLama, whose AI-fueled recruitment tools revolutionize candidate collaboration and boost talent acquisition strategies, and LiveHire, whose end-to-end recruitment and direct sourcing technology facilitates a dynamic and holistic approach towards total talent management,

Skills-Based Is the New Workforce Frontier

Business Leadership Direct Sourcing Diversity and Inclusion General Insights HR Talent Acquisition Technology and Innovation Uncategorized by John Yuva on 02/06/2023

We have recently talked about gamification and digital credentials as strategies for greater employee engagement, collaboration, and skills development. As enterprises re-engineer their workforce architectures toward a skills-based organization, these strategies will play a critical role in that initiative.

Why is skills-based the next workforce frontier? Simply put, traditional, antiquated job description-defined roles are ineffective in today’s volatile business landscape. Enterprises require agility and flexibility to respond appropriately to operational and market changes. A skills-based workforce architecture supports that requirement by aligning employee skills with project-focused initiatives. Deploying employees with specific skill sets to solve problems and ensure business continuity is a Future of Work vision.

Purpose of Work Redefined

With a nimble and responsive workforce, enterprises can leverage their talent using a more holistic approach while generating a greater sense of work purpose for employees. According to an article in Training magazine, “Skills-based organizations have a more agile and employee-centric approach to work where employees are valued for their skills rather than their job title, level, or educational qualifications.”

“It is a new operating model of work where employees are matched to tasks and projects based on skills, capabilities, and interests. Focusing on skill sets instead of job experience can help organizations optimize their talent pool.”

However, the success of this workforce model depends heavily on the ability to define work within the enterprise. What is the work that can ultimately provide a competitive advantage in the marketplace? Where in the organization does the most critical work reside? What skillsets and capabilities are most valued to accomplish the work required? How does the enterprise capture, structure, and utilize skillset data?

The critical answers to these questions are all part of the foundation of a skills-based structure.

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The Skills-Based Organization and the Staffing Outlook for 2023

Contingent Workforce Diversity and Inclusion Talent Acquisition by Christopher J. Dwyer on 12/19/2022

There’s no question that the world of staffing has entered yet another period of uncertainty. Besieged by the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic and then, thankfully, amped by a greater need for workforce flexibility and an increased utilization of contingent workers, the staffing arena faces a watershed year ahead.

Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research has discovered that 82% of businesses leveraged more extended talent in 2022 than 2021, proving that:

The extended workforce’s great bump in utilization wasn’t just an anomaly due to the pandemic’s impact on fluctuating talent needs.
Non-employee talent remains a viable and strategic way to not just augment staff, but truly drive mission-critical endeavors with high-quality, top-tier skillsets and expertise, and;
With direct sourcing, AI-enabled hiring, and digital recruitment paving the way for the Future of Work movement, the realm of extended talent translates into an opportunity for businesses to thrive during even the most challenging of times.

Glider.ai is a Best-in-Class, next-generation artificial intelligence platform that has disrupted the staffing and recruitment technology markets. Glider AI’s unique talent intelligence platform provides its users with fully-automated tools to boost candidate assessment and allow hiring managers (and other talent management executives) to remotely execute deep, skill-based recruitment strategies with a robust layer of strength and rigor.

The solution recently polled over 130 staffing, recruiting, HR, and contingent workforce leaders on their intentions, challenges, and general perspectives on the talent arena.

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