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Brain Circuits
How to create a skills-powered organization
As Standard Chartered’s Chief Strategy and Talent Officer, Tanuj Kapilashrami, oversaw a fundamental workforce transformation from a jobs-based to a skills-powered model. Here she shares five key steps to make the transition.
Build an internal ‘talent marketplace’
With many “sunset” jobs expected to become obsolete and many new “sunrise” roles expected to emerge over the next three to eight years, Standard Chartered set up its Talent Marketplace to enable employees to create profiles that showcase their skills, rather than just their job descriptions. Managers across the business post “gigs” – opportunities requiring skills not present in their existing teams – which are then matched to the most suitable employee profiles.
Use AI to tailor the employee experience
AI manages the skills-matching process on Standard Chartered’s Talent Marketplace, shaping how employees view their individual skillsets. In effect, AI takes HR technology and hyper-personalizes it, focusing on the experience, and augments employees’ performance feedback, making it more actionable and linking it to the organization’s learning library.
Ensure leadership commitment
CHROs need to ensure that leaders buy into the skills-powered model. Start by building the business case to get the attention of the rest of the C-suite, then set about demonstrating the bottom-line benefits.
Use feedback to redefine the line manager role
The shift to a skills-based organization challenges traditional parameters of the line manager role. This might mean scrapping an alphanumeric performance-rating system in favor of a model based on ongoing performance feedback in which everyone undergoes an annual 360-degree performance assessment from all stakeholders, with the line manager collecting feedback from diverse sources in a structured way, with a focus on development.
Start with proof of concept
Ensure that the first steps have a defined direction to be able to demonstrate successes and absorb the lessons before going deeper. This might take the form of selecting five “sunset” jobs as proofs of concept and identifying matching and adjacent skills before engaging employees to discuss the company’s changing requirements and their career options.
Key takeaway
Reskilling and redeploying an existing employee can mean considerable cost savings over hiring externally. It also has the potential to increase productivity for the organization by supporting colleagues in obtaining future-focused skills.
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