AI is changing jobs, workforce needs and the skills employers value. At the same time, organizations that have embraced skills-first are confronting a different challenge: how to move from commitment to consistent, sustainable implementation.
SkillsRight CEO Debbie Dyson recently joined Harvard Business School professor Joseph Fuller on the Managing the Future of Work podcast for a conversation about “refining the post-AI talent equation” and what SkillsRight is learning from employers navigating that change.
At the center of the discussion was SkillsRight’s formula for workforce transformation: combining better workforce intelligence and advising with talent supply, while shifting the focus from credentials to capabilities.
Here are six highlights from their conversation.
1. The skills-first challenge has shifted from buy-in to implementation
Employers increasingly understand the value of skills-first. The harder part is embedding it into the way the organization actually operates.
“This isn’t an initiative,” Dyson told Fuller. “This has to be fundamentally how you actually hire and how you think about human capital management holistically.”
For SkillsRight, that means starting with an assessment of where an employer is today, what it is trying to achieve and what it is ready to take on.
Dyson pointed to three factors that help frame the work: organizational readiness, the ability to adapt to change and the dynamics of the jobs themselves.
From there, SkillsRight can examine actual jobs and job descriptions, identify where employers may be emphasizing experience rather than skills, consider where talent is available and determine whether the need is for talent, training, education or a combination.
2. Better workforce decisions start with understanding the work
One of the shifts Dyson described is the importance of getting better intelligence about an opportunity before moving directly to a talent solution.
Are the skills associated with a job actually the right ones? Where might that talent exist? What would it take to build those skills? And is the organization looking at the full picture of what makes someone successful in the role?
Dyson described SkillsRight’s approach as looking across three dimensions: technical skills, durable skills such as critical thinking and problem solving, and culture fit.
The goal is to understand the opportunity first and then, as Dyson put it, “make the best strategic decision for talent, as well as the employer.”
3. AI is changing the jobs employers need and how they should plan for them
AI is adding urgency to that analysis because some jobs themselves are changing.
Dyson described one of the shifts SkillsRight is seeing this way: “your entry-level has become the new mid-level.”
A customer service representative, for example, may increasingly need to operate more like a client account manager, analyzing a problem rather than simply following predetermined steps. Data-entry work may evolve toward data analysis.
That raises a new set of questions for employers.
Is AI being used to improve productivity? Transform a business process? Or could it ultimately eliminate portions of the job? And does the role an employer is hiring for today have what Dyson called “long-term legs”?
Those questions can help organizations plan for the work they will need, not simply fill the jobs they have today.
4. Employers need better evidence of the skills people actually have
As jobs evolve, employers are placing greater emphasis on capabilities such as adaptability, critical thinking, problem solving and communication.
The challenge is assessing them.
Dyson shared the example of an employer that wanted candidates to demonstrate critical thinking and problem solving through simulations and real-world scenarios. SkillsRight subsequently partnered with another provider to begin introducing that type of assessment for certain roles.
AI is creating another assessment challenge: candidate authenticity.
Employers are increasingly asking whether resumes and claimed skills genuinely represent the candidate or have been generated or heavily shaped by AI tools. Dyson emphasized maintaining human intervention to help validate the person and capabilities behind the application.
5. The talent employers need may already be inside the organization
The changing nature of entry-level work is also causing employers to look differently at their existing workforce.
Someone who entered an organization in a more junior role may already have the organizational knowledge and foundation to move into the new mid-level role faster than an external candidate.
That makes internal mobility, retention and upskilling increasingly important.
Dyson also noted renewed demand for more experienced workers, including employees further along in their careers whose experience can complement emerging technology skills.
In some cases, employers are bringing those strengths together. SkillsRight is seeing training cohorts that pair younger workers with more seasoned employees, enabling each group to learn from what the other brings.
6. The employers making skills-first stick are broadening ownership
When Fuller asked what distinguishes organizations making meaningful progress, Dyson pointed to an important shift: skills-first is moving beyond a traditional HR practice.
Employers seeing success are increasingly bringing together HR, talent acquisition and learning and development to support implementation, education and change management.
They are also measuring the results.
Dyson cited outcomes such as productivity, speed to hire, how quickly employees become productive and retention as important indicators of whether skills-first practices are delivering value.
The goal is not simply to launch another workforce initiative. It is to make skills-first part of how organizations make decisions about hiring, developing and deploying talent.
Listen to the podcast and read the full transcript on Harvard Business School’s Managing the Future of Work.