This is a contributed piece from RedThread Research, a human capital research and advisory membership dedicated to helping organizations make better people decisions. RedThread recently hosted an invitation-only workshop to give Eightfold customers the clarity, tools, and framework they need to build a practical skills strategy that aligns with their long-term organizational goals.
At our recent RedThread Skills Strategy Workshop, more than 50 leaders across multiple industries gathered to pressure-test their thinking, compare progress, and dig into what it really takes to build a skills-based organization.
While each team had their own priorities, one thing was clear: skills strategy only matters if it solves real problems.
Even though participating organizations were at different starting points, there seemed to be a common set of priorities:
- Use skills to close workforce gaps.
- Improve mobility.
- Prepare for inevitable disruption.
- Guide employees through more targeted development.
Within these priorities, teams in this particular cohort seem to be focusing on specific, high-value use cases. Instead of doing skills for skills’ sake, these teams are looking for concrete ways skills can help solve business challenges.
Here are some of the most common ones we heard.
Skills, not résumés, are the key to unlocking talent potential.
1. Understanding skills gaps are stalling progress
Because it’s daunting, most organizations don’t start out by mapping every skill.
Instead, they start by figuring out what’s in the way. Even more specifically: skills gaps that are slowing down business priorities. They tend to be focused on the ones that matter most for things like growth, transformation, or operational change.
For some, this means linking skills to bigger bets like automation or market expansion. For others, it’s more about gauging readiness for product launches or a shift in a service model.
The sharper the focus, the more teams are able to make smarter calls about hiring, reskilling, and deploying, so their people strategies actually support the business strategy.
2. Verifying skills for talent acquisition
Talent teams seem to be getting more specific about the skills needed for a role, instead of relying on job titles and vague job descriptions.
This shift helps recruiters and interviewers ask better questions, look for more relevant proof points, and make more data-driven decisions. Some are incorporating skill requirements directly into interview guides, candidate scorecards, and even sourcing strategies.
The clearer these organizations are about what good looks like, the clearer the path to finding it.
Related content: Building a skills strategy is much harder than it looks. Here are six lessons from the front lines of skills work from RedThread Research.
3. Workforce planning
We’ve seen a resurgence in workforce planning in recent years, likely because better data — much of it skills data — allows for more nuanced and adaptable workforce plans.
This data is being used not just to track head count but to actually get ahead of talent needs. Instead of looking backward at roles, leaders are looking at skills data inside their organizations and comparing it to skills data outside their organization to forecast both supply and demand and make better build-buy-redeploy decisions.
4. Supporting career growth and internal mobility
As some talent grows scarce, there is also a refocusing on internal mobility and growing internal talent. Skills data is being used to map roles, define what’s needed, and show people how to move around and grow.
The beautiful thing about using skills data in this way is that it’s not just good for the employees; it also allows organizations to guide talent to where it’s needed the most.
5. Customizing employee development
We’ve officially moved past using a peanut-butter approach to employee development. No more creating standard courses, spreading it across the organization, and hoping for the best.
Skills data enables targeted development for the individual and for the organization.
Employees get what they need and want. Organizations, when they understand where they have either too much or too little of certain skills, can adjust availability and encourage development of the skills they actually need.
6. Succession planning
Succession is always a priority, but it gets easier — or at least provides more options — when using a skills lens.
As organizations gain a clear view on the types of skills that are actually required or critical, they’re able to take that skills data and understand who has those skills and can fill those positions.
Skills data tends to open more data pools and help to locate unlikely candidates that may fit the bill better than the usual suspects.
7. Managing costs and efficiency
Organizations are using skills to make more strategic, cost-conscious decisions, from streamlining hiring and succession, to prioritizing reskilling over cuts. Skills data can help organizations make decisions about where to invest, which capabilities to build, and how to get the most out of the talent they already have.
If there’s one thing I noted during this workshop, it’s the very experimental nature of skills work. Often, organizations go into skills work thinking that it can be solved with a fancy ontology or a great tech solution.
While we at RedThread are fans of both, I can tell you that skills, strategies, and implementations are do-it-yourself, no-cheating-off-your-neighbor sorts of work.
The best skills strategies are those rooted in solving actual business challenges. They reflect business priorities, practical constraints, and optimism.
The goal is not to do everything — at least not right away. It’s to focus on the things that matter the most.
Ready to improve your organization’s skills strategy? Learn more in our recent Q&A webinar with RedThread.
Dani Johnson is Co-founder and Principal Analyst for RedThread Research. She has spent the majority of her career writing about, conducting research in, and consulting on human capital practices and technology. Before starting RedThread, Dani led the Learning and Career research practice at Bersin, Deloitte.