- A skills-based approach does not aim for perfection — the goal is to create an environment where employees’ skills can change and grow as the business grows.
- Successful implementation of becoming skills-first requires extreme ownership of the change and buy-in from every employee impacted.
- Taking a skills-based approach has positive impacts on business goals and revenue when it is done thoroughly.
The house was on fire, and all Alba Allué knew was she needed to get her younger sister to safety.
At just 12 years old, she had kicked a hidden set of skills into gear. As the adults in her extended family reacted by panicking, stressing, and screaming, Allué focused on a single goal: get her sister dressed, including shoes, and get out of the house.
Thankfully, Allué was successful, and no one in her family was injured in the incident.
Years later, she uses this story to demonstrate how you don’t always know your full range of skills until needed — or need to be developed. In her case, that included situational awareness, the ability to stay calm, and quick problem-solving.
As a Delivery Manager for nformal, the skills she used in that fire now help her implement talent intelligence systems for organizations worldwide.
Allué understands why taking a skills-based approach is a game-changer and what signals an organization’s readiness for this work.
Here, we share four readiness signals she regularly sees in organizations looking to become skills-first.
Related content: Skills, not résumés, are the key to unlocking talent potential and evolving your organization.
1. You understand it will not be perfect.
Becoming a skills-based organization is about discovery: discovering the hidden potential your current workforce has, discovering the skills gaps you didn’t realize were there, and discovering the skills you’ll need in three to five years and beyond.
Spoiler alert: you won’t get it perfect on the first try. No one does.
But that, says Allué, is where the magic of this work happens.
“It’s not static — it allows organizations to understand the skills they have today, how they’re growing, and where the gaps are,” she said. “When you have that visibility, you can move faster and align to the potential of your people.”
That means starting with the data you have, extracting value from it, and creating a baseline for this work, then iterating.
Allué says that if the data starting point were perfect, an organization’s HRIS would be flawlessly structured with employee data, the LMS would include every course and opportunity imaginable, the ATS would be spotless, and the job architecture would be perfectly mapped.
That’s not the reality for any business.
“We need enough accessible data that’s usable to enable the use case and provide a high impact,” she said. “The reality is a partially ready structure will be good enough to get started, and you will bridge gaps when you identify them.”
If you understand the 80/20 rule you are probably ready for skills-first.
Related content: The evolution of the workplace demands a new approach centered on talent and skills. Learn more in this e-book.
2. You view skills as dynamic.
Allué says that one of the biggest misconceptions she sees daily in her work is that skills are fixed, static things that must be identified, labeled, and then never change.
But approaching this shift in work as a thing to catalog and control kills its essence. You don’t need to over-engineer it if you have a solid framework that supports the dynamic nature of skills.
“It’s not about what’s your job or what’s your role — it’s what you can actually do,” Allué said. “Understanding that people can bring rich, unique abilities and tapping into them at scale to focus on potential.”
It’s not just about what skills a worker possesses either. Talent intelligence can be used to predict what skills an employee could acquire in the future based on their potential.
“Skills are moving, fluid,” Allué said. “This is something really important for our customers to understand. When you get into this skills approach, it’s not only about understanding the skills that you have, but how those skills are growing and evolving.”
If you understand skills are dynamic, you are ready for a skills-first approach.
3. You understand adopting takes time, people, and ownership.
A skills-based approach to managing your talent isn’t a flip-of-the-switch solution. It’s genuinely a top-to-bottom change that requires pre-work, commitment to adoption, and buy-in from everyone it impacts.
Allué says the key to a solid approach, which she’s seen in every organization she’s worked with, is being intentional and identifying a key use case.
And not just one with high returns on investment for HR — it must be a use case that impacts the entire organization with visible, quantifiable outcomes aligned with business goals.
“We normally suggest starting with a high-impact use case — something that demonstrates value quickly, like job matching for internal mobility, skills gap identification for strategic function, workforce planning, or skill-based automated screening,” Allué said. “We want to make sure that your employees will want to access the tool from day one.”
To accomplish that goal requires extreme ownership of the work. It also takes support from employees at all levels of the organization — from the decision-makers in the C-suite to the individuals who use and maintain the systems daily.
“Sometimes the HR Systems SMEs are missed or undervalued, but as the teams that maintain or own the system, they have influence,” Allué said. “You need to work with them throughout implementation so they understand the context and how this impacts their processes.”
If you are willing to be deliberate — starting with the key personas and the processes they live in — you are probably ready for a skills-first approach.
4. You view this as a new way of work — not a one-off initiative.
A skills-based approach to hiring and managing talent must be integrated into everyday decisions, from hiring new talent to managing and growing current talent.
To successfully do this, you need a clear understanding of why it matters (your high-impact use case) and a strong change management plan.
Your change management plan should include a thoughtfully crafted learning journey designed with finesse and attention to different roles, contexts, and maturity levels across the organization.
Allué says scaling and allowing enough time for the changes to be implemented and adopted is also key.
“We had a customer in the manufacturing industry who started by rolling out this approach to a small group of recruiters in one country,” she said. “From there, we expanded to six different regions. It took six ambitious months to scale globally. Now, a year later, you can really see the impact. Taking that time to adapt and process the change made all the difference.”
That organization saw a significant increase in candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS), achieved a 27% application conversion rate, and had more than 80% of started applications completed. The result? Better candidates coming through the door and stronger hires for the business.
But the impact didn’t stop at hiring — employees were also brought into the journey through a skills-based internal mobility experience.
“It laid the foundation for a skills-based talent strategy truly bringing their employees into the journey,” Allué said. “It’s a strong example of how a talent-centered approach can drive results today and build real agility for the future.”
If you understand continuity instead of one-time, you are probably ready to go skills-first.
See how talent intelligence can help you create a skills-based workforce today.
