Episode 239: How Arcadis is Building a Skills Powered Organisation (with Amy Baxendale)
If you're looking for honest lessons from the frontline of skills transformation, this episode is for you.
Picking up from last week’s strategic deep-dive with Ravin Jesuthasan and Brian Fisher at Mercer, this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast takes a practical turn, exploring what it really looks like to bring a skills-powered strategy to life inside a global organisation.
Joining host David Green is Amy Baxendale, Global Future of Workforce Director at Arcadis, who has spent the past three years leading a bold transformation to embed skills-based thinking across the company.
From reimagining workforce planning to enabling talent mobility and cultural change, Amy shares a rare, unfiltered view into the challenges and breakthroughs that define real progress.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
What triggered Arcadis' shift to a skills-first model, and how they got started
How to navigate early implementation hurdles and complex change dynamics
Approaches to gaining executive buy-in and aligning with business strategy
Why governance and structure are key to sustainable transformation
Ways to track progress - beyond ROI - to include engagement and agility
Unexpected lessons and eye-opening moments from the journey
What the future holds as skill demands continue to evolve rapidly
Whether you’re planning, piloting, or scaling a skills-based approach, this episode is packed with insight, inspiration, and grounded advice from someone who’s done the work.
This episode is sponsored by Mercer.
To thrive in an AI-augmented world, organisations must rethink how work gets done. Mercer’s Work Design solution uses AI to deconstruct jobs, redeploy tasks, and redesign work for greater agility, productivity, and impact.
Unlock your team’s full potential. Learn more at mercer.com/wfdemo
This episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast is brought to you by Mercer.
[0:00:09] David Green: Off the back of last week's episode on the skills revolution, with Ravin Jesuthasan and Brian Fisher, which if you haven't listened to already, I highly recommend, this week we are exploring in depth a powerful example of how to build a skills-powered organisation, seeing everything we spoke about with Ravin and Brian last week and putting this into action. Because while frameworks and strategy are critical to successfully developing a skills-powered organisation, the real challenge lies in making it work on the ground, in the systems, the culture, and the day-to-day decisions that shape how people work and grow.
So, joining me today is Amy Baxendale, Global Future of Workforce Director at Arcadis, who has spent the past three years leading a bold transformation to embed a skills-powered approach to workforce planning and talent management across Arcadis. Amy shares what it really takes to embed a skills-first mindset across a global company, from identifying the business objectives to securing leadership alignment and building robust governance, as well as navigating the complexities of implementation, and measuring both the tangible and intangible outcomes. This is a rare and honest look into the realities of skills transformation. If last week's episode with Ravin and Brian laid out the why and the what, then this conversation with Amy focuses firmly on the how. So, whether you're exploring the shift to a skills-based approach, or already deep in the process, there's plenty of insight, learning, and inspiration to take away. With that, let's get into it.
Amy, welcome to the show. To kick things off, could you start by sharing a little bit about yourself and maybe what brought you into the world of HR?
[0:02:05] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, certainly. Thank you so much for having me, David, it's wonderful to be here. I'm originally from the UK. I moved to the Middle East for four-and-a-half years, and then I've been living here in Australia for the last eight years. About me, I love to travel. I'm actually lucky enough to have just got back from a three-month sabbatical, where my husband and I spent two months traveling around South America and then a month kayaking around Fortland, South Georgia and Antarctica. So, I feel very, very privileged to have had that opportunity.
What brought me into the world of HR? Well, I actually mistakenly sat in the wrong lecture theatre when looking at universities. I decided in that moment to move from planning to study agricultural economics to actually doing business studies specialising in HR instead. And since then, I've always been in people and culture, working across many domains. And as you said, now the future Workforce Director for Arcadis. I actually first joined Arcadis 21 years ago, and this is my 15th role in my 4th different country working with Arcadis. I am actually a boomerang employee, I did leave for 18 months and come back, but still a long time. And as an organisation, Arcadis delivers the sustainable design, architecture, engineering, and consultancy solutions for our clients, really around kind of natural inbuilt assets. And we're a Dutch company with about 36,000 people.
[0:03:21] David Green: Perfect. Well, we're going to be talking a bit about internal mobility and you certainly had a lot of internal mobility, 15 roles in 21 years. That's very impressive. I love the job title, Global Future of Workforce Director. Tell us a little bit more about that and what's in your remit, because this is a job role we're starting to see more companies bring into their HR organisation.
[0:03:43] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, so it's a new role that I moved into actually when I came back from my sabbatical, so still very new and kind of forming. But I guess the focus of it is really enabling us as a business to really focus on the future of work, the future of workforce, the future of workplace, work style, and start to really think about how do we prepare our people and therefore our business to really be future-proof for the future. So, very much focusing on thinking not only about the skills we need and therefore our skills-powered organisation journey, which we'll talk about today, but also really starting to think, what does that mean in terms of how we need to set ourselves up, how we need to be structured, how we need to look, feel and act as an organisation, and how our leaders need to lead in a future-focused world.
[0:04:26] David Green: Yeah, we'll probably touch on all elements of that, I'm guessing, during the conversation as well, because the promise of AI is that it's going to make things very different, both in terms of how work gets done, but also how we lead as well moving forward. So, it's going to be an interesting time. It's a great role for you, I think, to have. You mentioned that you started your skills-based or skills-powered organisation at Arcadis three years ago. What was the catalyst that sparked the transformation or the desire to move to be skills-powered?
[0:05:01] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, and I will say we're terrible at acronyms at Arcadis, so we talk about being a skills-powered organisation and we refer to it as SPO. So, I'm really sorry. I'll try my hardest to remember. But if you hear me say SPO, it is our skills-powered organisation journey. But I guess to answer your question, there's both external influences that absolutely were at play, but more importantly, it was internal pain points that really served as the catalyst to start our journey. Prior to starting, obviously clients have always been a front and centre for us as an organisation. So, primarily to meet our clients' needs wherever they are in the world, we recognised we needed to better understand the skills we have, where in the world those skills are, and actually have a more seamless way to access that talent. So, for us enabling global work sharing, breaking down silos and strengthening partnership and collaboration globally is part of our strategic intent. And that's really so that we can unlock the full potential of Arcadis's talent globally.
So, through our skills pad journey, we're really looking to look at ensuring we've got the right expertise available to deliver exceptional outcomes for our clients. But at the same time, we also recognised that our clients' needs are changing, there are new industry players coming into the market. And so, we need to be able to respond to skills gaps in areas where we're prioritising growth for those two reasons. So, identifying those gaps and then developing the talent strategies we need to respond to them, we saw as being really, really critical for business resilience and therefore a key catalyst.
One of the catalysts that always upsets me is we unfortunately recognise that people were choosing to leave Arcadis due to a lack of career visibility. And so, we really recognised we needed to enable more visibility and personalisation. As you said, David, earlier, the fact I've been so privileged to have such a, what I fondly call squiggly career, it really devastates me when I hear other people say it's easier to find a job outside Arcadis than in Arcadis. So, that was a real driver for us. Another strategic driver was really around maximising the productivity gains from standardisation, automation, and as you say, integration of AI, because we really wanted to be able to make sure we could help our people to see how they can use the time they freed up to pivot to more value-adding work, so to really, I guess, help us reduce the resistance to the changes in how work gets done, because that standardisation, automation AI piece is critical for us as an industry and as an organisation.
Arcadis tends to grow both organically, but also through acquisition. So, another strategic driver for us was recognising that we needed to quickly understand the skills of our new colleagues, be able to connect them to client needs, but also help them to see pathways to grow in the new business, so they're excited about joining the new organisation. And I guess the last catalyst, David, I'd probably say is really importantly for us a core priority, is to make sure we're using data to enable more inclusive and merit-based talent practices, but also decisions across the organisation as a whole.
[0:08:06] David Green: So, it's pretty comprehensive then and it obviously starts with the business challenge that you're trying to solve, which I think is good advice for anyone looking to potentially move to a skills-powered organisation, because it might not suit every company. And what it sounds like is there's definitely an employee lens. Obviously, you talked about people leaving and citing that they felt that they had no potential to progress their career. So obviously, you're looking at, I presume supporting things like personalised learning, career mobility projects and stuff. But what it also sounds like is it's a way of linking it with strategic workforce planning as well, because as a business, as things like AI and other challenges that we're facing as organisations, such as shrinking labour market populations, all that sort of stuff, strategic workforce planning becomes ever more important. And a great way to do strategic workforce planning is to understand the skills that you've got, the skills that you need and put processes in place to try and close that gap.
[0:09:10] Amy Baxendale: Yeah. And I think really importantly for us, yes, there's people benefits, of course, there is, and they're the often the easier ones to articulate. But genuinely, this was driven from a business pain point, business need perspective, because the business really sought the benefits. So, I totally agree with you, David, and I'll probably say this ten times today, but one of the biggest bits of advice I have is absolutely focus on the pain points relevant to your business, to your stakeholders. Where we started and the priorities for us will be very different to where someone else starts and the priorities for them. And there's never a right place to start, but the right place is what's important for your business. So, yeah, totally agree with you on that.
[0:09:49] David Green: I know that you've obviously been looking at this for a couple of years, but you've actually just started to implement it, but what are some of the challenges that you've faced along that journey, and now that you've started implementing your skills-powered model?
[0:10:03] Amy Baxendale: I think the first thing for us in terms of how we tried to, from the start, consider challenges and approach it was to really approach this as a human-centred change programme. It's not a technology implementation, this isn't about implementing a shiny new tool, it really is about transforming Arcadis with people at the heart of the change. So, co-creation, making sure we've got diverse voices, tailored communications, all of those things have been really critical to help both tackle the challenges as they've come out, and also to drive adoption and engagement as well. As you said, data, we couldn't have the conversation without talking about data privacy; data privacy, ethical AI, they're paramount when you're on this journey, right? And for us navigating different privacy regulations across over 30 jurisdictions, that's required really close collaboration with legal, with privacy, and really ensuring transparency for our people in how the AI generates recommendations. And mitigating unconscious bias continues to be essential for us in terms of building that trust and equity that I talked about at the start in terms of one of our drivers.
Works councils, engagement with these works councils is critical for global deployment. In Europe, securing that approval does take significant time. So, again, anyone with European operations, that is really a lot of effort, a lot of time, but it's really vital. And for us, it was really important, because our ambition of that equitable experience for all Arcadians meant that we had to make sure we did that journey as well. So, really, really sort of important challenge, but also plan that's needed there. One of our biggest challenges, and this in part probably comes down to data, but our biggest challenge has really been navigating inconsistencies in application of our job architecture globally. So, we thought we had a globally-aligned, consistently-applied job architecture. When we started, that became apparent it wasn't quite as consistent as we might have liked. And that does impact the accuracy of personalised recommendations, when you look at it from a tech perspective, that does kind of impact that. And obviously, that then impacts the perception of people about the quality of the recommendations made to them.
So, for anybody listening, if you haven't started your skills journey, at least having a plan to ensure that consistency in job architecture as a baseline is, in my mind really, really critical. As an organisation, we are a client-facing, projects-based business. So, the ability for our people to remain billable with clients is critical. But at the same time, we've had to really make sure people understand that time invested in creating your SPO profile and training the AI is really, really important, because that's what unlocks those personalised learning opportunities and recommendations that you referred to earlier. And of course, we also need to balance the utilisation on projects with time for our people to learn through gigs, through new roles in the business, by accessing development opportunities, etc. So, it's really important, but it is challenging. So, for us, partnering with finance to really make sure we're embedding non-billable time into business plans at the start of the year, goes some way to maintaining that balance. Because obviously we need to ensure we continue delivering for our clients whilst also fostering that long term growth and development of our people and Arcadis as a whole.
So, you can keep reiterating to the business that this is a long-term endeavour, but it's really natural that a business starts to want to see results quickly and early. So, I think continuously reinforcing the message that this is a future-proofing process and not something that can be achieved overnight is important. But to kind of counter that, we're constantly looking for opportunities to share success stories wherever possible, because those stories is what builds the confidence to sustain the momentum and kind of demonstrate that tangible impact along the way. And I would say that real strength of partnership is really integral to navigating the challenges as they come, and to drive success. So, my role in the programme is the Senior Responsible Owner, and my equivalent counterpart in both Mercer and Eightfold, the three of us meet together every single week, and we have done for the last three years. And that's really important to make sure, for all of our organisations, we're really keeping this top priority and we're supporting the team with unblocking any challenges as they rise.
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So, how did you develop the business case for a skills-powered organisation that aligns with Arcadis' wider organisational goals?
[0:15:49] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, great question. So, I began this journey in January 2022, which feels a long time ago now, but also like it was only yesterday. But really what I'd started with, I'd started to fundamentally join the dots between pain points that I was seeing and experiencing in the business, and the insights that I was exploring from thought leaders like yourself and others in terms of the evolving opportunities in relation to skills and AI, etc. So, bringing those together, I sort of crafted a narrative on how transitioning to a skills-powered organisation could contribute to, not be a silver bullet, but contribute to solving some of those really business-specific pain points. So, firstly, I just took that as an idea to our Chief People Officer and our CEO, to just understand it's the appetite to explore further. The key thing here was really ensuring I was talking about pain points specific to our business, and talking about the art of the possible in relation to things important to our stakeholders. So, I got that initial interest secured from those.
We then pitched the vision to the wider executive leadership team, and that was really to get approval and buy-in to take our thinking further. From there, we developed what I called a Business Case Light. And I purposely named it 'light', because doing a fully-costed business case and the benefits, realisation, and ROI to be articulated, we needed to have our delivery partners on board and therefore understand the actual costs associated. So, it was that Business Case Light that we kind of focused on potential benefits from a whole variety of stakeholders' perspectives. And then, during the RFP process for both, we went out to market with two different RFPs, one for our change implementation partner and one for our technology partner, and we ensured participation throughout that from diverse teams from across the business, so that all those different stakeholders' voices were being heard. In particular, at that point, procurement and privacy and legal teams were on speed dial.
I suppose really importantly, buy-in has also been, because we've designed this from the start to be business-led, and we've always talked about this being a business-led programme, of course it's supported with strong involvement from the people function. But actually, it was the leaders of our client-facing business who were the ones who took it to the executive leadership team for final approval. So, they went saying, "Us making this shift is critical for us to deliver on our long-term business plans". So, the people function didn't take it, they took it. So, that, from a buy-in perspective, was really important to me. I'm very privileged that our CEO is actually our sponsor, so that has been really instrumental. And actually, becoming a skills-powered organisation is front and centre and part of our three-year strategy. So, our leadership team collectively are really advocating for it.
I always caveat that. I realise that's a very privileged position to be in and it's not, of course, always feasible either to have your CEO, but also to make it part of your business strategy. But I guess to your point, my message is that top-level sponsorship is really critical. You will come across challenges as business performance ebbs and flows. Naturally, the first things that look to be challenged are the things that are seen as more people-related programmes sometimes. So, that consistent senior buy-in is really critical for that consistency of support. We also engage change sponsors from, again, our client-facing part of the business. And then, they created change champion networks, and those networks are really critical for us to advocate and influence adoption throughout the business.
Then, I suppose, the last thing I'd say in terms of getting buy-in is around the key benefits and what you're articulating there, because we really wanted to be clear that platform adoption is not a benefit. That's not a success measure that we wanted. Yes, of course, by having increased adoption, you drive the other success metrics and benefits realisation that you want to achieve, but we wanted to make sure that wasn't the measure. So, for us, for buy-in, it was really critical that we just focused on three benefits, and we made it really clear on the impact SPO can have on those, and then we used established mechanisms that are already in place to measure those benefits. So, we didn't want a cottage industry of new measures and new ways of measuring, etc, so just really try and keep it simple and not create lots of new noise in order to do that.
[0:20:09] David Green: How did you go about establishing the right structures at Arcadis to ensure that this change was sustained and isn't just another passing fad? And obviously, you've been on a three-year journey, so I presume you've got good governance in place.
[0:20:22] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, absolutely. And I totally agree. For us, central to the start was really setting up that governance and stakeholder engagement at all levels across the business. I literally remember being in a meeting with Eightfold and Arcadis, determining our governance is one of the first things we did which, like you say, wasn't the most exciting thing to start off with, but formed the real basis for how we operated. Because this is true culture change, there are so many levers across the business that have to be pulled to create an environment where becoming skills-powered can succeed. You have to have those different governance levels in place. Probably the most important one for us really is we established a SteerCo from the start. So, from day one, we set up a SteerCo which had five change sponsors, again from our client-facing fee-earning business areas. We then also have on there representation from operations, from legal, from finance, from people and culture, from tech, don't want to miss anyone out, I think that's everybody, alongside also our senior responsible owners from Mercer and Eightfold. So, they're part of our SteerCo as well. So, again, really showing that three-way partnership is critical.
So, that sort of diverse representation ensures that we've got full partnership approach, but also diversity across the whole business. And then, the SteerCo basically approves any major programme decisions. So, my programme team take recommendations to the SteerCo, the SteerCo makes those recommendations, and then that then goes to our next level of governance, which is a subset of our executive leadership team, who are the SPO decision committee. So, they ensure that all recommendations that come from the SteerCo are carefully considered before every go, no-go phase. So, we've broken our journey into horizons and we have what we call pause, reflect, move moments at every gateway. And that's what goes to SteerCo and then to the executive leadership team. So, that's probably the main thing I'd say from a governance perspective. But our change network that I referenced earlier is then a structure that plays a really vital role in supporting that. And the change champions through the organisation really help to drive momentum, advocate for the programme and influence in adoption as well.
However, I say all of that as if it's all easy. As you say, sustained change is really challenging and especially, the constant flux in the world we're experiencing the moment, natural organisation changes take place, and this is a multi-year programme, so they will take place time and time again. So, I probably sound negative when I say this, but it is a long slog and as you say, some people may see this as the next fad and there will be times that is questioned, without any doubt. But I think what we try to make sure we're okay with is that you don't have to achieve everything in your North Star vision all at once. The transformation will take time and every small win you've got to look at as a success to be celebrated, because by fostering a kind of resilience change network, celebrating those incremental progress, you are maintaining momentum and gradually working towards that goal. But I'm not denying that, of course, you get that challenge, "Is this a fad, do we need this?" That's going to come and go, and it's just that consistent messaging and those consistent success stories as your way to kind of explain the importance of focusing and remaining focused over what is a multi-year change journey.
[0:23:48] David Green: And in terms of leadership, you talked about this being a different way of working, so there's a whole change programme behind it and communication. Have you found a change in leadership is required to support this skills power transformation?
[0:24:04] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe not change in leadership, but certainly changing leadership mindset and behaviour is really critical. The shift to a skills-powered organisation, as I said, I'll say time and time again, it is a true cultural change and we need our leaders to be owning that from the front. And as we know, leaders cast a long shadow, so their advocacy, authenticity, and visible commitment are key enablers for the success of any programme like this. And I suppose, like with any significant change, some leaders will naturally embrace the journey and lead it from the front, while others may resist, and it's perfectly natural. And I think, as with any change, it's important to meet leaders where they are to try and bring them along the journey. So, that mindset and behavioural shift is definitely front and centre.
One of the natural challenges, I guess, of moving to a skills-powered organisation is what I fondly call, and others do as well, talent hoarding. And you mentioned Patricia earlier. Actually, when listening to the interview of Patricia from Seagate, she was talking about this on your podcast a couple of weeks ago, that ultimately, leaders are currently in a normal world incentivised to build high-performing teams and deliver exceptional outcomes for their clients. And the very idea that talent will go out of their teams and flow to opportunities elsewhere can feel really counterintuitive and against how they're traditionally incentivised. So, it does take time for leaders to fully embrace the benefits of the approach, and we're still very much on that journey. Because it's not until they recognise that they have access to incredible talent from elsewhere in the organisation that they might not have counted afterwards, that they could trust that actually that what they give up will be balanced by what they gain, and ultimately will perform better overall. So, that's definitely still a journey we're going on.
But I suppose for me, at the same time, SPO aside, I'm really conscious that we're at a point in the world where leaders today are being asked to unlearn so much of what they've learned over time, and relearn to lead in a world that looks entirely different, even if you're not on the skills-powered journey. So, AI human collaboration is the new norm, work increasingly is requiring those dynamic network teams where talent, whether it's internal, whether it's external, whether it's gig workers, whether it's AI, is going to need to flow seamlessly to where it's needed. And that's not just in the skills-powered world, right? So, I think all of that challenges traditional leadership models which, quite frankly, have been based on power, authority, hierarchy, control. And instead, leaders need to embrace new ways of working that are prioritising flexibility, agility, collaboration, and adaptability.
So, I think for me, the expectations for leadership are shifting in parallel with the SPO journey, because leaders, and Ravin talks about this all the time, that leaders have to think paradoxically and they need to navigate ambiguity, they need to thrive in an age of continued disruption. So, if your leaders aren't starting to anticipate those forces, those trends and those signals to prepare now for the workforce and work styles in one, two, five, or even ten years' time, then you're too late as an organisation. So, I think for me, just you asking that question makes me think that transformation isn't just about building a skills-powered organisation, it's actually reimagining leadership itself to meet the demands of an ever-changing world. So, it's a big ask, but actually it's a really exciting opportunity for leaders to evolve and to really help shape their organisations and grow themselves alongside that organisational change as well.
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You obviously have got a number of measures that you're looking at to understand the success of the skills-powered organisation. You talked about three key measures that obviously you're communicating to senior leadership to show the progress that you're making. And rightfully, a lot of people focus on return on investment because as you said, it's a mammoth task. And if you're not getting a return on investment, then why do it? But I know when it comes to the early stages of a skills transformation, it's not always about the numbers. How do you assess the less tangible benefits, things like talent mobility, employee engagement, overall job satisfaction, maybe retention of key people within the organisation, those sorts of things?
[0:29:35] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, I think as you say, probably it's one of the challenges I should have talked about earlier. One of the biggest challenges is managing expectations. So, despite, as I said earlier, emphasising that this is a multi-year journey and the benefits will be realised further along the path, people naturally want to see and experience results sooner. So, I think communicating that whilst immediate gains might not always be feasible, each step is building towards that longer term success. And that does require patience, resilience, and a focus, as I said earlier on, I guess, celebrating those small wins along the way, because they are ultimately crucial milestones in that longer-term transformation. So, as we acknowledge, we are early in the journey, but we are seeing some promising signs of progress.
So, our time to hire is trending downwards, and that obviously does have a direct commercial impact for the business, which is really important when talking to the business. We're already seeing some promising signs around an increase in the number of internal hires, so that search for internal talent before the costly exercise of going external. So, the foundations we're laying are helping us to improve that talent visibility, and mobility is starting to take effect. We've also actually been able to calculate the financial impact of work that's being completed through gigs, so able to show the actual impact on EBITDA, so helping us to demonstrate how the flexible approach has enabled us to complete projects that without gigs, we actually might not have been able to find the talent to complete. So, some of those things we're starting to be able to talk about.
Beyond the numbers, we are seeing less tangible, but as you say, equally important benefits in terms of talent mobility improving. We've got some really lovely and really impactful success stories of individuals who've been connected to projects either as part of a gig or a short-term role that was available, and it's something they wouldn't have been able to access before, and that's the result of breaking down silos and that transparency around skills and opportunities. But also through gigs, some really great stories of where through doing a gig in another location or another team, someone's actually then converted that to a permanent opportunity and followed their career aspirations and goals and moved somewhere else. So, not only does it mean we're completing work for our clients quicker and with the best talent, but we are starting to see that we're fostering that collaboration across different sectors, whilst also supporting employee growth as well.
I suppose from an employee engagement perspective, skills are becoming more a vocabulary in the business. I'm not naïve enough to be convinced that everyone's speaking the same language at the same time or fully understands the concept of skills, but it is really encouraging to see the shift in dialogue across the organisation. Because for me, it's those small cultural changes that are early indicators that that transformation is sort of starting to take hold.
[0:32:24] David Green: And in the article I referred to, Amy, which is on the Mercer site, and we'll put the link to this in the show notes, because it's a great article and it talks about some of the stuff that we've been speaking about in this episode, you've got a quote, and I've got it on my screen opposite, that's why I'm looking at that, not at you. It says, "In a skills-powered organisation, skills become a currency of the business. It is skills, not jobs, that underpin every talent process throughout the employee life cycles". I don't know if you could talk to that a little bit. Obviously, you're looking at skills across the employee life cycle, from hire through to retire, if we want to call it hire to retire, but development, internal mobility, etc. What does that actually mean? And again, maybe you can talk to that as being part of the change programme around how you communicate that their focus is going to be and is starting to be on skills rather than jobs, which is obviously something that people are used to, I guess, particularly if they've been working in Arcadis for a long time.
[0:33:22] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, absolutely. So, I guess probably a twofold answer to your question. In terms of the skills underpinning all we do, we rightly or wrongly decided to approach this as a holistic change programme where we looked at how we would move to skills underpinning all people processes around the whole employee lifecycle. Other organisations absolutely have chosen to just focus on certain moments that matter in that employee experience. We have decided to look at how we move to that across the whole employee life cycle. So, we've approached our programme in horizons, we've broken it down into three horizons. So, we're kind of, I guess, slowly working around what we call domains around that employee life cycle. So, that's how, and for each one we basically have sprints and we do real deep dives into how's that done now, how could it look different in a skills world, and what does that mean in terms of how we need to change processes, tools, systems, ways of working, whatever it might be in order for skills to become, as you say, the currency of work embedded in that. So that's, I guess, from an overall programme change perspective, how we're slowly working around that.
From a skills, not jobs, work, not jobs piece, still very, very early. We're a 135-year-old business full of engineers and scientists. If we start to say jobs aren't going to exist and it's all about skills, we'll lose everybody on day one. So, we're not there yet. We are very much recognising that by talking in the language of skills, we're able to help people to understand that it's their skills, not the job that they happen to be in a little box on an organisation chart, which is where they are adding value. It's their skills rather than their current job, and therefore helping people to see through things like gigs, how we could break down a job into a smaller unit and enable different people to be part of delivering to that job. So, it's kind of incremental actions like gigs and conversations that are starting us on that journey.
You've then got the task element to that as well, right? So, the skills journey is now being amplified also with the task journey, and actually how you break down a job to a task to a skill. So, we're kind of navigating that at the moment as well. Ravin would love us to be in a position, I'm sure, where we're not talking about jobs anymore and we're all talking about skills, but it's certainly a journey for us and we're very much early on in our understanding about what that really means.
[0:35:44] David Green: Brilliant. And actually, that leads nicely to this question. As you've gone through the journey, have there been any surprises? I'm sure there have been many! Have there been any surprises or lessons learned that you didn't expect at the start? And maybe, what's been the most eye-opening for you so far?
[0:36:00] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, I mean, going through this journey, you encounter unexpected surprises and valuable lessons every hour. It's unfortunately par for the course. I mentioned earlier the job architecture. The consistency of application of that probably wasn't something we'd only moved to a global operating model from a regional country model just the year before we'd started this journey. So, we didn't have visibility yet of true understanding how it wasn't as consistently applied as we'd hoped. So, that was probably a realisation that came a little bit too late, and I certainly would have loved to have known that sooner. But I suppose we knew it from the start, but the biggest realisation, or probably reinforcement rather than realisation, has just been how critical that human element is. It's just such a vital role in all of this. I can't emphasise that enough.
But I suppose the bit anyone that's heard me talk about any of this before will know I always talk about, is the importance of investing in change. I always say if you're creating your budget, when it comes to your investment in change, double it, double it again, multiply it by four, add some more and times that by two. You just can't have enough investment in people and budget in terms of that change management expertise, because this is just such a significant mindset and behavioural shift. So, again, not necessarily surprising, but probably I'd underestimated quite how much that investment in change is so, so critical. So, us having Mercer in board is amazing, but we probably need 20 times their team plus 20 times our team to even get close to truly navigating the complexity of the change that this really is.
[0:37:42] David Green: No, it's really good. Very good to hear you be so candid about that as well. I think it's really helpful again for people listening. So, let's talk a little bit about where you see this going over the next few years, and I appreciate it's very hard to look even forward three months at the moment with everything that's happening in the world. How do you see this skills-powered transformation continuing to evolve over the next few years, especially as skills demands seem to be changing faster than ever? And maybe, as part of that, if you can talk to, as you look to the AI future or present and future, how do you think this is setting you up as an organisation to thrive in that era, rather than to be trying to play catch up with everyone?
[0:38:26] Amy Baxendale: Yeah, great question. I think with the pace of change, for us, our focus is on really ensuring that as a business, we remain agile and future ready. So that, I guess, is front and centre. And to your point around readiness for the future around AI, this can only be helping us on that journey. So, we know that the skills our organisation needs will continue to evolve. So, our priority has got to be on how we build a more scalable, adaptable framework that is enabling our people and empowering our people to grow and pivot alongside the changes. So, that's kind of the core focus. And looking ahead, we really want to focus on deepening our use of skills data to really drive smarter workforce planning, as you referred to earlier, and aligning our talent strategies even more closely with our client needs as well.
The data piece and really unpacking how we use that data and how we tell stories with that data for me is the really critical next step, at the same time recognising that we need to, at some point, tackle the really big, complex, hairy, scary challenge of how you reward for skills in an environment where demand for skills are, as you say, constantly changing. So, I don't know how, but developing a dynamic approach to skills-based rewards and incentives and benefits is going to be really crucial for remaining competitive and retaining key talent, and for our people to see the benefit in this for them of going on this journey and upskilling, reskilling, cross-skilling, etc.
At the same time, I alluded earlier or mentioned earlier that I see task intelligence as an increasing kind of part of the mix, I'm not quite sure how yet. But because ultimately the way I see it is, it's tasks, not skills that get automated, so being able to, as you talked about earlier, deconstruct jobs. You deconstruct the job into a task, not into a skill. But then once you know the tasks, then you can look at the skills needed to deliver those tasks. And that, to your question allows us to then go, "Okay, well, once we've done that, then let's understand what of those tasks can be done by humans, what can be done by machines". And that then allows us to double-down on the skills needed for the human elements, so ensuring we're focusing our investments around building, buying, borrowing, bottling talent, whatever we choose to do, in the areas that are determined to be by machines or determined to be by humans. So, that's kind of the ambition of where we get to.
I think another really exciting focus for me in this skills journey is the reinvention of capability development. So, I also lead capability development for Arcadis, and I really see the opportunity for us to really embrace AI and how we can achieve a different approach to capability development, whether that's through identifying skills clusters, accelerating pathways, unlocking personalised career opportunities, or designing at scale using AI. I think the possibilities of AI to transform how we develop and empower our people are immense. So, I'm really keen and my team are already working on how we can look at that further. I'm also really intrigued by the use of digital twins of employees. So, we've started working with Eightfold just to understand more about their thinking in this area. I was at Cultiv8 in London a couple of weeks ago and they launched the digital twin of employees, and I can really see how digital twins of our experienced workforce, being able to capture and retain their expertise and the insights of senior leaders and technical gurus, and making sure their knowledge is accessible after they retire, I can see some real benefits.
I think I'm always asked, "When will we be a skills-powered organisation? When is this going to end?" I just think it's never going to end. This is ever evolving. As you say, the new opportunities to think about how we work, and the new opportunities with AI agents and agentic AI, etc, to future-proof our people and the business, it is going to be ever evolving as the world of work continues to change at that unprecedented pace. I think last week, actually, in your conversation with Ravin and Brian, I think the quote came up that's always talked about, "Change has never been this fast, but it will never be this slow again". I think you challenged whether you believe that or not, but that's how it's certainly how it feels at the moment. And I think for me, that perfectly captures why becoming a skills-powered organisation isn't a destination, it's just a continuous journey of adaptation, innovation and reinvention, and even more amplified with, as you say, all the changes in AI and tech coming as well.
[0:42:51] David Green: Really good. And yeah, I mean I was just being devil's advocate because, yeah, things are changing very fast and you can't imagine it being that slow again. I smiled because I think I remember using that quote in a, and we can't actually attribute it to anyone because I think everyone says it, but I remember using it in presentations and keynotes back in 2018, 2019, but it's even more true now. So, maybe it is. And I think what's interesting listening to you is AI is making skills more and more important and making them change faster and faster, but it's skills that you need in an organisation to actually be able to thrive with AI as well. So, there is that symbiotic link between the two, which I guess for your role is really interesting, because you're bringing it all together a little bit there as well.
Amy, look, it's been great to hear about the Arcadis story. I'm going to get you onto the question of the series now before we wrap up, and it'd be interesting to see how some of the work you're doing actually impacts this particular question. But I'll say it again at the end probably, but this is one of the best, I think, examples I've heard of building a skills-powered organisation and all the challenges involved, but what the aims are as well. So, thank you very much for that. So, the question of the series is, how can HR help the organisation understand and improve team effectiveness?
[0:44:21] Amy Baxendale: I think personally, I have a really strong view that I think people teams can help drive team effectiveness by facilitating that integration of AI and human collaboration. I think that is where we've got a really important role to play. I think as businesses implement AI, both in terms of the way they work, in terms of tools, and really use those to enhance decision-making, streamline workflows, we can help teams to understand how to leverage that technology to boost productivity, innovation and creativity; and really helping as a team, we can help support in developing the skills that complement those AI capabilities, and fostering that culture of continuous learning and adaptability and recognition that it is working with and alongside and together as a team with AI, as opposed to AI supporting what we do. And I think additionally, in terms of navigating the ethical and interpersonal aspects of AI human collaboration, to ensure that balanced, effective partnership, and really making sure we're focusing on trust, and really making sure we're helping our people to really trust in both the AI, the opportunity it brings, the power it can bring, how it can help them, as an individual, grow, develop, be more innovative, be more creative and grow as an individual; but at the same time, trusting in how you're using AI in the business and the importance of the privacy around that, etc.
So, I think that is a real place. We play along, of course, with our legal privacy counterparts and of course our tech counterparts as well. But I think really, it's got to be this future-focused approach that's going to ensure that teams are quick to be effective and excel in a dynamic, technology-driven environment, which we are all already operating in, let alone how much more that will become in the coming weeks, months, years.
[0:46:06] David Green: Before we part ways, can you let listeners know how they can follow you and all the great work that you're doing at Arcadis?
[0:46:12] Amy Baxendale: Firstly, thank you. Thank you so much for having me on the show. After being an avid listener of the podcast every single week for so long, I feel quite privileged and a little bit starstruck to be in front of you. It's like your voice is really real when I talk to you. So, yeah, really lovely to be here, so thank you. I was worried you were going to ask me this because I know you always ask everyone. Yes, if you'd like to follow our journey and the work we're doing at Arcadis, you can find me or Arcadis on LinkedIn, but I'll admit I'm not always the most active as I should be, particularly considering how much I learn from others and their awesome shares on LinkedIn. So, this will trigger me to make sure I'm more active. But I do pop in and I share insights and updates from time to time, and I'll certainly share this podcast. But yeah, I'd love to connect with others. I love having the conversation with people and helping them on their journey. So many companies helped me really, really early on, and every time people ask me questions, it helps me to learn more as well. So, really always happy to continue the conversation, but yeah, LinkedIn for both me and Arcadis as a whole.
[0:47:05] David Green: Perfect. And I'm pleased that you listen to the show as well. That's very good to hear that, Amy, and thanks for your kind words. So, I'll just be honest, the show is only as good as the guests, to be honest with you. I just ask the questions. So, thank you very much. And hopefully, I know you're on the other side of the world to me, but you said you were in London a couple of weeks ago. So, hopefully I'll see you at an event at some point in the future.
[0:47:27] Amy Baxendale: Hopefully, that would be great.
[0:47:28] David Green: I'd love to continue learning how you're making progress on the skills-powered journey at Arcadis, so thank you very much.
[0:47:34] Amy Baxendale: Thanks again, David.
[0:47:37] David Green: That's all for this week's episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. A big thank you to Amy for joining me in sharing such thoughtful, practical insights into what it truly takes to build a skills-powered organisation. If you haven't yet listened to last week's episode with Ravin Jesuthasan and Brian Fisher from Mercer, I'd highly recommend going back to give it a listen. Together, these two episodes offer both the blueprint and the building blocks for reimagining the workforce through a skills-first lens. As always, thank you for tuning in each week and listening to the show. If today's episode sparked ideas, questions, or even a shift in perspective, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and share the podcast with a colleague or friend. It really helps us reach more forward-thinking leaders like you.
To connect with us at Insight222, follow us on LinkedIn, check out our website at insight222.com, and don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter at myHRfuture.com. That's all for now. Thank you for tuning in and we'll be back next week with another episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. Until then, take care and stay well.