SKILLS PODCAST: THE FUTURE OF TALENT CRACKING TOMORROW'S SKILLS CODE:
IDENTIFYING YOUR FUTURE NEEDS

Cracking Tomorrow's Skills Code: Identifying Your Future Needs

John:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Korn Ferry podcast where we're going to focus on future skills, specifically identifying the skills that'll be needed for your organization's future success, and discussing how you could build a strategic plan around skills identification for the future. And I'm really excited about this, because there's so much talk out there these days about skills, especially the skills that are going to become obsolete when technologies like let's say AI become even more commonplace, which is obviously happening very quickly. But a lot of us are wondering, what skills aren't going to become obsolete? And even which skills will we need that we're not even considering? Now, the good news is I have the perfect guest to talk about this with today, and they are Karin Visser and Ashish Sinha. Welcome, Karin and Ashish. Thanks for coming on.

Ashish Sinha:

Hi John and Karin. Thank you so much for having me here today.

Karin Visser:

Yeah, thanks for having both of us. I'm really delighted to be here.

John:

So like I mentioned, you two are the perfect guests to have on to speak about ways organizations can identify the skills they need for their future success. And I'd love it if maybe you could each take a minute and tell us a bit about your backgrounds and your connections to this topic. Just so everyone understands why I'm saying these are the two perfect people. Karin, let's start with you.

Karin:

Yes, thanks. So to tell you a bit about me, I'm Vice President's IP Development in our Korn Ferry Institute, which is the innovation center within Korn Ferry. And the institute provides research science and intellectual property and insights that underpin Korn Ferry Solutions, helping to align client strategy, organization and people to drive sustainable performance. I'm working primarily on innovation of our IP related to organization and work design as well as total rewards, bringing together our IP around people and work. We are integrating generative AI in the process everywhere we can, and we use all the data we gather to create enterprise insights that help companies to improve their organization and workforce. And one of the topics we have been doing research on and are building IP around is the skills-based approach for transformation. So I'd like to talk with you about skills and how organizations are able to use those skills to transform their organization and develop their people to be successful now as well as in the future.

John:

Thanks so much. And how about you Ashish?

Ashish:

Great, thanks, John. John, I'm a senior client partner and a practice leader for people analytics in EMEA at Korn Ferry. So as a global organization, my key job on a day-to-day basis is to help and work with our clients to align their strategy, their people, and their culture to achieve their goals. So I've been doing this now nearly about 25 years, working in the field of business analytics and people analytics across multiple industries and geographies. So it's been really, really interesting to see new things crop up as the workforce is evolving, the future of workforce is evolving. Now, one of the topics obviously has been and is profoundly growing is around the impact that's coming through transformation.

Technology, globalization and skills is one of the buzzwords and the topic most of the clients are most interested in understanding. Just keeping in mind your skills have always been there, but what technology has done now is enabled us to infer that and use the data that comes out of us or of it in the most productive manner to impact and shape the future of workforce. So I'm absolutely passionate about this space of work and how the future of workforce is drastically and transformatively changing. Happy to be here to discuss this.

John:

[inaudible 00:04:25] see everyone. I told you we have the perfect people for this. Okay. So like I mentioned in my introduction, when it comes to skills and the topic of future skills specifically, I feel like most of the talk out there in the business community is focused on skills that will become obsolete. And look, I get it, because talking about skills that will no longer be needed or necessary, it makes you a great headline. I mean, I'm clicking on that article or video all day long and I'm sure I'm not alone. And you run into people who are talking about dying skills all the time. And Ashish, I'm wondering, how do you get the leaders in teams that you advise to refocus and look beyond the skills that won't be needed and start focusing on the ones that will?

Ashish:

Now, that's a great question, John, and that is often the area on discussion and debate that I have with my clients, because they are so worried about what do we do with our workforce? Because it's a highly engaged performing organization that workforce is completely aligned towards, so they're concerned how do we help our people? So it comes more from a concerned perspective, from leaders, more than a challenge of how do we realign the organization. So my advice to them always, as Karin rightly mentioned, we always take them back to why does the business exist? What is the core strategy that you have in your business that you're looking to achieve today and for the future? That becomes a stepping stone. Walking backwards, and I know we'll discuss this in a little bit more details, is when we understand what the business needs, we can start understanding what do we currently have and what would be the gap to achieve the future-looking goal.

And that really gives you a good position of understanding what are the skills that you might not need in the future. So rather than thinking, what do I do with that, I often advise my clients is that they should think about creating a skills philosophy for the organization that looks at a dedicated strategy of upskilling, cross-skilling and re-skilling people for the future of workforce, right? Every organization, every individual has to go through that journey because that skills requirement is going to evolve. So my point of view back to them is look at the strategy that you need and then create a strategy that helps you realign your workforce through immense number of interventions that you can drive in a targeted manner of what skills and how you can re-skill your people through a skills adjacency, as you might say.

John:

Yeah, that's great advice. Now, Karin and Ashish, what's going to be interesting about this conversation is the folks out there listening to this, they work in all different industries and areas, so I can't just ask you, so what are some future skills our listeners should be considering for the future and have you discuss specific skills and why they'll be important? Because obviously the future skills that are going to be relevant and necessary for one industry will most likely be different than the ones that are relevant and necessary for another. So instead, we're asking you to provide us with approaches and strategies that our listeners who come from all different industries can apply to identify the skills that their category and their organization will need for the future. And obviously that's a pretty tall order, and I have to tell you, I'm really curious to hear your recommendations for how they can do this. So let's start with the most obvious question. What's the first step a company interested in identifying the future skills needed for their organization can take? Karin, maybe you could take this one?

Karin:

Yeah, thanks John. I'm happy to. So yeah, I would say that step one really is to have to define the gap. So really the gap assessment by looking at the future as well as the existing situation. So this means to map out the workforce drivers based on the business strategy as Ash already mentioned. In that respect, I would like to stress that our experience is that the work to be done really remains core. So to achieve the organization's strategy work needs to be done. So this means that the organization needs to define the work to be done in the future to look at the workforce needs for the skills. So skills cover in our perspective a large area of capabilities from behavioral competencies to technical skills to also personal identity. And I think it's important to realize that skills do not exist in isolation. They exist in the context of the work to be done.

So the responsibilities to perform in an organization. So the organization should search for the expertise to define what looks like in their context, what total set of skills makes a person successful and fits to the work to be done, because that fit really, really matters. Our research shows that individuals with a strong fits to their job outlined in a success profile, were eight times more likely to be highly engaged compared to those with low fit. So focusing on this will enable the organization to identify critical capabilities, skills, and talent segments needed to achieve the strategic objectives. When the future skills and capabilities are clear, you can start to compare the current workforce with the future needs and assess the gap.

John:

Yeah, that's great advice. Okay, so what comes next, Ashish?

Ashish:

I think what comes next in terms of the process, just building on what Karin just mentioned. Absolutely, that is the first step heading towards the end objective that you want, but just stating the obvious where is that it's critically important, let's not forget this is a transformative process. So that business buy-in that sponsorship from the business and creating a common language of a skills taxonomy is an absolute must as well, right? Because I'm a strong believer that this is a business initiative to which HR become guardians of the process. So it's important that we start with that keeping in mind that we are looking to answer a business question through a people lens from a process perspective once, as Karin mentioned, we've understood the gap, which is where work needs really need to be done. I think the next step is to start future looking, the scenarios that the business has in mind, what scenarios, where's the business heading towards and where's the gap?

Because that in many shapes, in many ways, will start shaping the future of your workforce, because you can start aligning your build strategy, your buy strategy in terms of talent. And more than that, it needs to be looked at holistically as Karin was mentioning just before this, as to the whole angle of how talent is firstly acquired, developed, and then obviously nurtured within the organization as well. So it's important to start understanding those scenarios because that will then help you create sub-strategies when it comes to talent as to how you acquire them, how you develop them, how you grow them, and also give them a more agile career path within the organization as well, which in turn then starts shaping your strategic workforce planning and the road map. How do you acquire critical skills that are required, critical roles that are required in the organization and start putting a strategy towards filling them either internally or externally.

John:

Okay, that's great. So let's say a company goes through the process that we've discussed and they've identified those relevant and necessary skills for the future, some of them might end up looking at that list, so to speak and think. Okay, so now what, in other words, these might be skills that are so unique or so new that the company might not be familiar or comfortable searching for or even helping their current employees build and hone. So Karin, what do you recommend in that situation?

Karin:

I think, John, that they should really look at the gaps that they have in their organization and divide the missing links into different clusters. From our extensive research, we know that the complexity of skills matters, so some skills are easier to develop than others. For example, technical skills such as programming can be learned more quickly than behavioral competencies like situational adaptability or agility. And then we also have personal identity elements like openness to differences or risk taking, and they are even more difficult to develop. So taking that into account will give direction to what can be developed through the existing workforce or what needs to be brought in from external sources. And there are different strategies to tackle those skills gaps. The most important strategies are built by Boro and Bot, and build means developing the skills of your own employees through upskilling and reskilling.

And this can be done to look at people with adjacent skills like Ash already said, and support them in developing these skills by providing focused learning and development programs and to find adjacent skills in the organization. Our science-based success profiles can support to see where in the organization these adjacent skills can be found. Then by means, of course, to hire people with these skills from the market. This of course asks for knowing where these people can be found. So talent data insights in the industry and regions will be a strong source in this external market. Analytics will tell you where people with the needed skills live, their current employers, their pay skills, demographics and more. And that will help organizations to know where to find them.

Then the Boro strategy is an option to use interim resources to fill or bridge the gaps or support skills transfer. This more temporary solution will jumpstart overcoming the skills gap and will allow for additional time to build or buy these skills on a more permanent basis. And then the fourth strategy I want to go into is bots, which is more like automating the work to be done and outsourcing there is another option with the potential that generative AI is delivering. This option is very promising, one of course to consider, especially for more transactional work. So making an inventory of which work can be automated or outsourced is the first step to take here.

John:

That's great. I love the four B's, build, buy, borrow, bot. That's fantastic. How about you Ashish? Any thoughts on this?

Ashish:

I think Karin has very beautifully explained that in the sense, and I think the key to agility in terms of skills and moving around would be the adjacent skills. The more you understand what you have, the better you can shape the future of your workforce to the strategy you're trying to deliver in the future as well. The only one thing that I might just add to that when we are looking at skills perspective, the job and the world of work is evolving by the minute. So there will definitely be new jobs and new skills that will keep flourishing. Having this first step, as Karin explained, gives you that agility then to really identify how do you meet that need when a new skill is arriving?

One of the skills that is so much in demand and spoken to about today is cybersecurity, right? Those people with cybersecurity skills are so much in demand, but eventually people will identify what are the path to achieving that skill in a shorter way when you start understanding the skills based of your own organization. So it's definitely achievable and should not be a concern because it is going to be a moving target, unfortunately, till the time future of work starts taking more definitive shape.

John:

And I'm curious, speaking of timing, how often should companies be doing this? I mean, is this something that you recommend they do on an ongoing basis, maybe once per quarter or so? Since as we know things are moving quickly, especially on the technology front, how often should they do this?

Ashish:

I think from a frequency perspective, disinformation feeds into the different cycles within an organization's decision-making, right? So from a workforce perspective, on a very operational or tactical perspective, I would say revisiting that from a supply and demand perspective, a quarterly cycle or a half-yearly cycle is brilliant as well. And then the longer term, I think as we've been mentioning, it all links back to the strategy. So if the strategy of the organization is evolving, changing a revisit to what skills are required to deliver that strategy is called upon for, and it's very critical that both of them go hand in hand.

John:

Karin, any thoughts on that as well?

Karin:

Yeah, I mean, I think that Ash really clarified this in a good way. Looking at the change rates of some skills, you think you might want to do this every week or months, but to be realistic, that certainly isn't possible, and I think it's also not necessary. I totally agree that it is very important what the organizational context is and the strategic challenges of the organization. If that changes, then you have to reassess and indeed on a yearly basis, that would be a good sequence, I would say.

John:

Yeah, that's great. And this is another tactical question, but I think it's important. Let's say a company goes through the process that you've both laid out and they've identified those relevant and necessary future skills. Ashish, I'm curious, how widely do you think this information should be shared within the organization? And I ask that, because I would think that there might be leaders and even employees who would be interested to learn about it. I mean, if I heard that skill X, say was something the talent acquisition team was focused on when hiring future employees, I would probably start working on building and honing that skill for myself.

Ashish:

I think that's a very good question, and it is also an often area of discussion when we speak to our clients and leaders, because I feel skills information definitely has to be at one point in time, democratized as in the employees and leaders should have visibility to it for two reasons. One, as an employee, you take ownership of your career progression, you take ownership of your own development, you understand the skills that are critical for you to do your job at the best of your ability, so you invest in yourself and learning. We are seeing a trend as well. Where it was top down is becoming more bottom up where employees want to take that ownership. So I would say democratizing that information is definitely important, because as I've heard a wise man said, in the sense you can only manage what you can measure. When you bring that to the surface and you start measuring of where you are, is that when you start really proactively managing that yourself as well.

John:

That's great. Well, Karin and Ashish, this has been fantastic. But before we go, is there anything that we didn't discuss when it comes to this topic that maybe we should have, or maybe even a question that I should have asked that I didn't, Karin?

Karin:

Well, I would like to stress that beyond the technical solutions and the workforce planning that are really important, of course, it is also very important to engage people in your organization through leadership, through culture that really fits your organization's purpose to the right reward and recognition. And of course, really focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion to improve the employee well-being a lot of that is really key to ensure you have the right people with the right skills and how to shape this for success in your organization.

John:

Yeah, that's great. How about you Ashish? Any final thoughts?

Ashish:

Yeah, just one last final thought, just building on again on what Karin mentioned. Often organizations, when I speak to your organization and leaders in the organization, there's a perception that technology is the silver bullet and getting a skills inference engine is the be-all and end-all of becoming a skills-based organization. But just as Karin lightly highlighted, there's a lot of change management, there's a lot of communication you need to take people through that journey with you. So it is a mini transformation of its own of transitioning into becoming more skills-based. So I would definitely re-emphasize and stress on what Karin mentioned, make sure that it's looked at it holistically, make sure the impact it has on employees and how they would utilize this information to the best of their ability so that the organization performance improves and their own individual experience and journey within the organization becomes much longer, much more pleasant and much more engaging.

John:

Yeah, that's great. Well, Karin and Ashish, thanks so much for coming on. We really do appreciate it.

Karin:

Yeah, well, thanks for having us. It was really a pleasure to be part of this together with Ash. I know we can talk about this topic on and on, because as Ashish already said, he's very passionate about it. Well, I am as well. So thanks again.

Ashish:

Thank you very much John and Karin, it was a pleasure having an opportunity to discuss this with you for our audience. So thank you very much.

John:

Well, thanks to both of you again, and to all of you out there listening, we hope this episode was helpful and not only encouraged you to make identifying future skills a priority if it isn't already, but also armed you with some actionable strategies and approaches that you can use to identify those relevant and necessary skills.