Workday-developed documentary UNTAPPED: Closing America’s Opportunity Gap hits Netflix in the US this October. To celebrate, we’ve pulled together everything you need to know to start your journey to becoming a skills-based-workforce.
This month, UNTAPPED: Closing America’s Opportunity Gap launches on Netflix. The Workday-developed documentary – produced by LeBron James and Maverick Carter, and directed by award-winning filmmaker Josh Kahn – shines a light on the opportunity gap in America and how organisations moving to skills-based hiring can help to fix it.
To celebrate its launch, we’ve pieced together some of the hottest takes on skills and how this fundamental shift in the way we work can transform businesses. Whether you're an employee thinking about the skills you need to get ahead or an HR professional shaping the future of work, we’ve got the insights you need to get you started on your skills journey.
In this article first published at the World Economic Forum, Workday’s co-founder Aneel Bhusri shared how shifting the focus from traditional job roles and responsibilities to a more fluid model based on skills is helping organisations to become more agile and adaptable in a rapidly changing world.
“Organisations must evolve how they think about the concept of work, moving away from the rigid idea that work is done through structured job roles and responsibilities, instead viewing work as a more fluid compilation of skills to be leveraged as the world around us changes. The resulting impact, as noted by Deloitte, is that skills-based organisations are more agile and more competitive, vital to succeeding in this new landscape.”
Read the full blog post here.
“I have an interesting background,” Tim Good, the human potential leader at Accenture shares on this episode of the Workday podcast. “I studied music, which is not the most natural route into professional services. I had an organ scholarship at Oxford, and I was responsible for running the music in the chapel choir and playing the organ and various other things.”
But ultimately, he decided to switch gears and took an HR role at Accenture, and 22 years later, he’s not only risen in the ranks, but become an advocate for giving second looks to job candidates who may not be obvious choices, or what he calls “hidden workers.”
“We did a lot of research at Accenture, along with Harvard, on hidden workers, and what you see throughout all of that research is that this is a group of people who have tremendous talents. They want to work, but they just can’t find the way into it. And that's why it's important to start to look at skills. By doing that, you're able to change the conversation and look far more broadly, not only in the organisation, but also externally.”
Listen to the full podcast here.
When Rolls Royce started on its skills journey it encountered a lot of skepticism internally. People liked doing what they were doing and didn't think this whole idea of skills was really going to land. After speaking with other organisations about their skills journeys, the HR team decided to give it a go on a very small scale.
“We partnered with engineering, which is the biggest function in our business and who had a need to broaden their engineers to adapt to the changing technology we wanted to develop to lead the transition to net zero. We worked with them at a very senior level and picked about 500 people in one of our aerospace engineering divisions to try it out.
“The results were astonishing with 60% of people completing a Workday Skills Cloud profile and looking for a gig. About 12 people started a gig in the first two-month window of the pilot. Nearly a third of our managers raised a gig as well. And the feedback on the user experience was also really positive.”
Read the full story here.
When it comes to identifying existing skills, uncovering hidden talents and matching people to opportunities, Harriet Newlyn, Workforce and HR Transformation Partner at PwC UK, thinks technology has a key role to play.
“We should be thinking about jobs and skills differently. Many organisations are embracing technology to understand the current supply of skills and future demand – and the gaps between them – and using this to create a more agile, skills-based organisation where it is easier to quickly tap into the right skills. It has consequences for job and talent architecture, for performance and for pay – but it is the direction of travel.”
Read the full story here.
In an interview with Workday’s Chief Customer Officer Sheri Rhodes, LaShaun Flowers, vice president of global HR operations, automation, and employee support at Caterpillar told us how embracing a skills-based-approach has made his team more agile, innovative and better able to meet the changing needs of customers and stakeholders.
“Our investment in Workday Skills Cloud gave us a common language. As an HR professional, I can present myself in a way that makes sense to a leader that I maybe haven’t worked with before. Leaders are able to communicate to HR what their talent and development needs are for their teams using that same common language.”
In turn, HR is able to share how the talent strategy impacts the organisation, Flowers added. While Caterpillar is just starting its skills transformation, Flowers knows Workday AI is the catalyst to push the company forward.
“We’re at the beginning part of the journey, but AI is only going to help us get better. It’ll make us more efficient. It’ll make us more effective. It’ll reveal things that we didn’t even know that we needed to be looking for. And I think that will only enhance what it is we’re trying to do in the talent management space.”
Read the full story here.
Ready to start your journey to becoming a skills-based workforce? Find out how Workday Skills Cloud can help you step into the future of work here.
From ditching the old focus on compliant employees to uncovering fresh talent by focusing on skills over pedigree, Accenture’s Tim Good talks about HR trends reshaping the future of work.
Aerospace and power company Rolls-Royce is on a transformational path to leading the transition to net carbon zero. We recently spoke to Alex Kyte, global head of talent at Rolls-Royce to find out how the company is taking an entirely new approach to people development and building a skills-based future.
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