Vodafone calls on Eightfold to achieve a skills-centric talent strategy

Vodafone HR’s strategic priorities aim to accelerate the execution of its refreshed business strategy focused on Customer, Simplicity and Growth. One of its priorities has been to drive a culture transformation through simple, digital, and outcomes-focused people interventions to accelerate growth while continuing to digitize and simplify some of its core people processes. To bring this to life, the company sought a digital learning and career development platform to provide an intuitive and end-to-end people experience, powered by AI and anchored to skills. HR leaders now have a complete and current view of the skills in Vodafone’s global talent community and can deliver personalized digital experiences to attract, upskill, and reskill talent in line with business objectives.

The challenge

Since launching the UK’s first mobile network in 1985, Vodafone’s vision has been to improve people’s lives through connectivity. This purpose has fueled Vodafone’s growth from a traditional telecommunications company into a next-generation connectivity and digital services provider with operations in 21 countries across Europe and Africa.

HR has contributed to this transition by undertaking a global, multi-year transformation encompassing talent data, systems, processes, and culture. To effectively drive business outcomes, HR leaders knew that skills and skills intelligence had to be at the heart of their strategy to build a Future Ready Vodafone.

“We wanted to recruit for skills, and we wanted employees to think of their careers in terms of the skills they want to keep, develop, or grow,” Adrian Boruz, senior global product portfolio manager – HR systems, explained.

Unfortunately, Vodafone had little visibility into the skills within its global talent community. Without this data, the company couldn’t strategically upskill, reskill, or redeploy its 98,000-person workforce.

In addition, despite upgrading its core HR systems, the company lacked the tools to create engaging, personalized digital experiences for candidates and employees. This limited its ability to recruit, develop, and retain diverse talent with the skills needed to keep Vodafone at the forefront of a competitive, dynamic industry.

The solution

Recognizing the power of AI-based skills intelligence, Vodafone decided to integrate the Eightfold Talent Intelligence Platform into its cloud-based HR stack.

According to Boruz, Eightfold stood out during an extensive selection process because the platform provides a unified definition and understanding of skills for the entire talent lifecycle. “We really wanted an integrated platform and experience across talent acquisition, talent management, and learning. Skills are what glue these areas together, and Eightfold puts skills at the core of the platform,” he explained.

Boruz said other factors in Eightfold’s favor included the technical superiority of its AI, a commitment to using AI responsibly and ethically, and a willingness to partner with Vodafone to extend the value of its integrated talent platform.

Vodafone went live with Eightfold Talent Acquisition and Eightfold Talent Management in early 2022. The company phased its global rollout based on the readiness of local markets and continues to deploy new capabilities in three-month sprints.

The results

Vodafone has realized significant value from Eightfold “both in terms of what we’ve accomplished to date and what it sets us up for in the future,” Boruz said. The company has achieved strong results in four talent capabilities critical to business success.