Episode 238: The Skills Revolution: Your Playbook for Workforce Agility (with Ravin Jesuthasan & Brian Fisher)
Is your workforce strategy stuck in the past?
As AI accelerates and traditional job structures show their age, more companies are asking a fundamental question: Are we organising work the right way? Which is why, in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, David and his guests, today, explore why skills-based workforce planning has surged to the top of the HR agenda - and what leading companies are doing to turn intent into action.
Joining David is, Ravin Jesuthasan, Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services at Mercer, and co-author of The Skills-Powered Organization, and Brian Fisher, Global Solutions Lead for Skills, Jobs and Careers at Mercer, and co-author of Mercer’s Skills Snapshot Survey.
Together, they break down what it takes to move from traditional job-based thinking to a skills-powered approach that’s more agile, equitable and future-ready.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Why jobs are no longer the ideal unit for workforce planning, and why skills are taking centre stage
How to align mindset, skillset and toolset to drive lasting transformation
The role of pilots and internal marketplaces in delivering measurable business impact
What AI is changing about the definition, demand and shelf life of skills
The three core capabilities every organisation must build to sustain a skills-powered strategy
How leading companies are connecting skills to ROI, workforce agility, and employee growth
If you’re rethinking your talent strategy - or just trying to keep up with the pace of change - this episode offers a practical, forward-looking take on what it means to truly become a skills-powered organisation.
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
Links to resources discussed in the episode:
[0:00:05] David Green: In the rapidly changing world of work, organisations are fundamentally rethinking the way they approach talent. Take for instance workforce planning, which traditionally revolved around jobs, roles and hierarchies. In today's world of work, where change moves at lightning speed and skills become obsolete almost as quickly as they're acquired, that model is fast losing its edge. And from experience, what I find is that the most forward-thinking companies are asking, what skills do we have; what do we need; and how can we redeploy talent at speed? They are taking a skills-based approach to workforce planning.
I'm your host, David Green, and in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, we explore those very questions and more with two leading voices on the topic. Joining me are Ravin Jesuthasan, Senior Partner and Global Leader for Transformation Services at Mercer, and author of five books, including The Skills-Powered Organization and Work Without Jobs. Ravin is joined by his colleague, Brian Fisher, Global Solutions Lead for Skills, Jobs and Careers at Mercer. They explain why skills-based workforce planning has surged to the top of the HR agenda, how to get started, and what it takes to make these efforts stick, especially as we navigate through the complexities of how AI is redefining how work gets done. So, if you're rethinking your workforce strategy, or simply want to understand the forces reshaping the talent landscape, this episode is for you. So, let's get into it.
Ravin, Brian, welcome to the show. Ravin, welcome for, I think, the fourth time. I think you and Dave Ulrich have been on the most actually. You both bring a wealth of expertise to the topic that we're diving into today, which is skills-based workforce planning, a topic that I know is of particular interest to many of our listeners. Before we get into it, could you briefly introduce yourselves and your roles at Mercer? Ravin, I'll come to you first.
[0:02:14] Ravin Jesuthasan: Great, thanks, David. It's lovely to be here with you. So, I'm based in Mercer's Chicago office. I take care of our transformation consulting business globally. And I work closely with Brian on everything around work and skills.
[0:02:30] David Green: And Brian?
[0:02:31] Brian Fisher: Yeah, sure. I'm Brian Fisher, I'm also based in the US, work with Ravin extensively, as he mentioned. I focus a lot of my time on helping clients transform their workforce processes and programmes from largely job-based to AI and skills-powered. And I did want to mention that I've recently been part of two studies from Mercer. One is the Mercer Skills Snapshot Survey, and the other is the Mercer's Global Skills Technology and Adoption Survey. And both of those will inform some of my comments today.
[0:03:09] David Green: That's great, Brian, and we'll put links to both of those publications in the show notes as well for those eager listeners that want to dive in more. Skills-based workforce planning is certainly a topic that I hear a lot from the clients that we work with at Insight222, and it's a that I hear a lot when I go to conferences as well. So, Ravin, I know this is something that has been a passion topic for you for a number of years. Why do you think skills-based workforce planning has become such a hot topic in HR and business transformation, and how is it reshaping the way companies think about talent?
[0:03:45] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, David, that's a perfect starting point, actually. I think what we're seeing, after over two years of lots of investment in GenAI and now Agentic AI, I think there's growing recognition that the long-promised and forecasted productivity gains have been really slow to manifest, and I think this growing recognition that the frictional cost of work being largely done in jobs is in large part to blame for some of these challenges. And so, what we're seeing organisations do, David, and this is driving this need for skills-powered workforce planning, is go back to move away from a tech-forwards view, ie I'm going to throw the technology and pray that it'll somehow manifest into fundamental changes in performance, to taking more of a work-backwards view. And what that means is companies starting with what's the underlying work and what's the underlying skills that are required to power some of these gains in AI to get to some of those productivity benefits that we all know are possible, but have been slow to be realised.
So, this recognition that the design of work, how it's planned for, how it's orchestrated, and having tasks and skills be the underlying currency, as opposed to jobs, is what I think is driving this interest in skills-based workforce planning.
[0:05:17] David Green: That's really helpful. And I think I know that in the previous episode that we recorded together with, with Tanuj at Standard Chartered, we see an example of a company that's done that and is having some success with success with that. And there are more and more examples now, which I'm sure you can share some other examples as well, of companies that have done this and are actually getting some of the business benefits from it as well. How do companies actually start building a skills-powered organisation, and what are the first steps they should take to get this strategy off the ground?
[0:05:53] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, David, and I'll kick it off and maybe have Brian jump in. But the thing that Brian and I have spent a lot of time on, as we've been working with organisations to transform over the last number of years, is this pivot towards becoming skills-powered is a really big challenge, right, if you think of our 150-year-plus legacy of work being done primarily in jobs. And so, it's a challenge that requires addressing, in the words of my good friend Gary Bolles, "Mindset, skillset, and toolset. And many organisations tend to start with the toolset, because it's obviously the easiest thing, and Brian alluded to the HR Tech Survey that was just done. But unless the other two sort of are brought along, and frankly unless the mindset and skillset lead the way, the toolset is not going to deliver on its promise.
But the way we see organisations doing this in a sustainable way, David, is three things. One is establishing a North Star that anchors the journey over a multiyear timeframe, and not a North Star that's indexed to a specific HR outcome, like better career mobility, but a North Star that's actually anchored in fundamentally changing the performance of the business, "How are we going to make a material change in productivity, efficiency, and agility? And how will that manifest into the way the organisation works and the way people will feel about those changes, whether it's leaders, managers, employees, or the HR function, which needs to orchestrate this?" So, that's the first bit. The second bit is starting with prototypes and pilots. And we talked about this in the book, David, going narrow and shallow, narrow being, what are some specific use cases that we can deploy where there are pain points and pinch points in the business, where becoming skills powered actually allows us to solve problems that we might not have been able to solve in the past, so some very specific business problems? Shallow would be to take a particular HR process, like workforce planning, where we started, and actually reworking it end to end to show the organisation what a true skills-powered process might look like, and what that means for governance of the process, the impact it has, the employee experience it engenders, etc.
Then, the third piece, coming back to where I started, which is not just starting with the technology tools, but ensuring that we're addressing all of the critical enablers beyond the technology, what are the incentives that motivate managers and leaders to behave in a different way; what are some of the operational processes like budgeting; what are some of the HR processes that need to be retooled; how do we bring employees on this journey so it's not being done to them, but that they're actually being a part of re-envisioning what becoming a skills-powered organisation might be, and see what's in it for them? So, three key steps, I think, to addressing that mindset, skillset, and toolset. Brian, what would you add to that, I guess?
[0:09:03] Brian Fisher: Yeah, I mean just a bit about embracing that change and really embracing a test-and-learn mindset. So, it's a mindset that many different parts of the organisation and functions, that is part of their DNA. That has not always been part of the DNA of those that are leading these efforts, which in some cases will be HR. And so, if we really adopt that test-learn mindset, we establish feedback loops so we can continue to measure against stated outcomes and adjust where needed. When we've had, and Ravin, you and I worked with a couple of clients in this respect, is when we've had organisations that have decided, "Oh, great, let's pilot this concept", wonderful, right? But we always need to really think about the North Star and link some guiding principles around that North Star. Because what I've seen happen is we run this pilot here, we run this pilot here, we get great feedback. We might actually overcorrect on that feedback, as opposed to always reconciling it and aligning it back with those guiding principles. In that case, we might have a couple very efficient, effective pilots, but if they're going in different directions, that really inhibits our ability to scale.
[0:10:31] David Green: In a rapidly changing landscape of work, organisations need to reinvent at speed. With Mercer's Work Design solution, leaders have the AI-powered tools to redesign work for an increasingly AI-augmented operating model. By deconstructing jobs and processes, redeploying work to AI, agile teams, internal marketplaces, and other available options, and reconstructing new more impactful ways of working, companies can radically increase productivity, efficiency and agility, all the while shining a bright spotlight on shifting skill requirements and enabling upskilling and reskilling efforts. Unlock your team's full potential with Mercer Work Design. To learn more, visit www.mercer.com/wfdemo.
So, Brian, obviously you've worked with a lot of organisations. What do you see as the critical enablers that make a skills-based strategy successful? As we've talked about, it's not just about having the right tools, but there's the culture and leadership elements of this as well, I think.
[0:11:57] Brian Fisher: Yeah, very much is, while organisations get on this path for different reasons. And one of which we didn't really highlight it, is HR technology. The new features and the new capability are really bringing optimism, but then also opportunity for teams. And so, I'm just talking about getting on that path, even the organisations that perhaps have been slow to skills, HR technology is almost forcing the issue, because their core HR systems are now building out skills capability and skills functionality. Some organisations, again that may have been slow, are actually having to now start on skills in order to simply optimise what's available at the HR technology marketplace, some of which they already own, right, and that's often the case. But so, let me answer more squarely around those enablers.
It is definitely technology and the culture and leadership, and so really to make progress against that North Star as Ravin commented. So, leaders, yes, they must encourage and model that shift, that shift in mindset as Ravin commented, from jobs and job holders to skills and work, right? That's a big change. And employees must be proactively engaged. They need to buy into the why skills matter to them personally, to their future, as the key to sustained employment. And that sustained employment is the key to financial security, and to the success of the company. To establish that trust, a skills culture must be supported and governed by policies that are aligning things like incentives and budgets, and also promoting consistency. I know I've experienced this, a few bad apples, if you will, as far as consistency and application, it can really have an outsized negative impact on the growth towards skills. Now, Ravin, I think you can share probably a lot more about those organisational capabilities. Any additional comments?
[0:14:16] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, Brian, just to pick up on that and, David, we talked about this in our interview with Tanuj. But the three capabilities that we see as being truly foundational to supporting this journey, one is this notion of work design, do I have the right and strong signals of changing demand for work; can I connect those to the demand for skills? And then, the design of work to be able to orchestrate either machine capability, human capability in a variety of forms, to deliver on those skills and capabilities. Secondly, if I know the demand and I know the supply, can I orchestrate the right developmental solutions so that I'm upskilling and reskilling at scale and speed, as the demand changes with increasing velocity? And then, thirdly, so that I'm not just doing development for the sake of development, but that I can deliver on those productivity, efficiency and agility gains, can I deploy those skills, the human skills I've developed and machine capability that I've developed, back to productive work at scale and speed, and have that virtuous cycle of continuously sensing changing demand, developing the supply and deploying it as an organisational capability?
I think that's those three capabilities, David, we've seen in all of our research, are truly pivotal to delivering on the promise of the skills-powered organisation.
[0:15:42] David Green: Yeah, and actually, talking about your research, one of the reports that Brian referred to at the start was the Mercer's recent Skill Set Snapshot Survey, if I could actually say 'snapshot' properly! And one stat that really stood out for me is that nearly half of organisations are mapping skills to individuals, but proficiency frameworks remain inconsistent. So, Brian, obviously as one of the authors of that report, what are some of the biggest roadblocks that you've seen organisations hit when trying to adopt a skills-based approach, and how can they overcome them? So maybe, Brian, we'll start with you, and then maybe, Ravin, you might want to add to that?
[0:16:23] Brian Fisher: Yeah, well, I'll just go right at the data here, because we asked about obstacles in our snapshot survey, and this was encouraging. All the obstacles that have been cited through the years, the obstacles to adopting skills-powered talent practices, they've all decreased compared to last year's survey. So, that indicates significant progress on overcoming barriers. The research reveals that a general acceptance of organisations, or general acceptance that organisations should transition to skills-powered approaches, although what the top three obstacles are now, or barriers, is HR capacity, excessive change, and when we typically talk in threes, but in this case tied for third are two other items, which is lack of funding and increased cost, which are very much related.
Now it's noteworthy, the reason I'm fairly encouraged, it's noteworthy is that leadership buy-in has now dropped out of the top three. We've been doing this study for multiple years now. It's dropped now from the top three, which really is an indication that the business case has been proven out and also celebrated, if you will, by the pioneers in this space. Ravin, other thoughts on obstacles?
[0:17:59] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, David, I'll go back to what we said earlier around the mindset, skillset and toolset, and one of the things that we found to be a significant obstacle is when this is a purely HR driven effort. That's where it often runs into some roadblocks and often, when it's a purely HR driven effort without the business signing in, the problem is denominated or its impact is denominated in terms that perhaps aren't compelling for business leaders. I'll give you one specific example. There's an organisation we know who framed their entire skills transformation as being about better careers. And the advice that we gave them was, "That's not going to be sufficient", because the journey we're talking about is a pretty transformative change. This isn't like going into shared services or installing new tech; that's a heavy lift. But this journey to becoming skills-powered is actually a truly systemic change that affects every facet of work and talent as we know it. And so, if you denominate the problem in terms of sort of a people or an HR outcome, the sustainability or the organisation's ability to sustain that journey, I think, can be challenging.
Unfortunately, what happened with this organisation is the minute they missed their earnings for the first time in something like ten years for the quarter, what was top of the list of the things that they were going to deprioritise? Well, this career thing, right, because there was no clear impact on profitability, on productivity, agility, efficiency. And I think that's where denominating the outcome of this in terms of business impact, I think, is something that needs to be framed up front. So, this journey, David, it's not an easy one, right? It's why we start with pilots and prototypes as opposed to the big-bang change. But the prize is really worth it, because it's not 3% gains from perhaps taking on a new technology or cutting expenses. As we've demonstrated to many organisations, it's 30%, 40% or 50% gains in productivity and capacity release, etc. So, yes, the lift is heavy, but the prize is certainly worth the lift.
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How can organisations become more agile with their strategic workforce planning, because I guess they need to be, don't they?
[0:21:42] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yes, absolutely. And I think it starts with a couple of things, David. I think it's moving beyond, as we talked about at the beginning, moving beyond jobs and jobholders to really tasks and skills as being those basic building blocks. And then, understanding whether it's human skills, machine capabilities, etc, how do we combine those under different scenarios, under changing machine capabilities, to actually meet the evolving demand for work from the organisation? And I think this notion of a more agile approach to workforce planning, David, is a really important one, because every organisation is going to need to decouple future growth from its traditionally resource-intensive approach to resourcing, to sort of powering that growth. And so, as we decouple resource intensity from growth, I think continuous understanding where your capabilities and skills lie, human or machine, and understanding how those can be developed into a more agile, scenario-based approach to workforce planning, I think becomes important.
I think the other key point is, as we've seen in the work that Brian and I have been doing, is baking in work design into the workforce planning process so that you're clearly able to sort of look at, under different scenarios, where do you build, buy, borrow, bought, bounce, as many of your listeners will be familiar with, all of the Bs that go into the design of work. But being able to do that in a rapid, agile fashion, I think, is going to be important for workforce planning. Brian, what would you add to that?
[0:23:29] Brian Fisher: Yeah, I mean, completely agree of the importance of work design as a key component to the future of workforce planning. But our research, it suggests that workforce planning practices in macro terms are relatively immature, so with some stuck in jobs and headcount processes that can really work against the goal of decoupling growth and from resource intensity. So, let me give you some stats. Some companies, they're taking baby steps. So, according to our snapshot survey, 47% of respondents are now considering skills in their workforce planning process. And that this is actually up 5% from last year's study. And here's another reason to be optimistic. Of the 47%, there's a significant rise in the number that are reporting confidence. So, of that, there's a big increase in those that say that, "We are high or very high levels of maturity", while incorporating skills into their workforce planning. So, that's significant because while some may be putting skills into their processes, now we're seeing those that are already doing it, they're actually maturing in that process, getting greater confidence there. So, room for optimism, but boy, a whole lot of room for improvement.
[0:25:08] David Green: A question we get sometimes, and I'm sure the question you get even more, is what's the return on investment? From your experience, what kind of early wins or quick results can organisations expect to see when they begin to put a skills-based workforce strategy in place?
[0:25:26] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, David, let me give you three examples and one you've already referenced, which is the work that Tanuj has done, being able to show their board and CFO at Standard Chartered Bank that they could save close to £50,000 per employee, multiplied by 40,000 employees who were being transitioned, that they could save £50,000 by reskilling talent from their sunset roles to their sunrise roles, as opposed to doing what companies have traditionally done, which is, "I'm going to do a restructuring, lay off a bunch of people over here, take the hit in terms of severance cost, and then go out and pay above market premiums for these new technical skills that I need". So, there's one very significant gain on that in terms of skills transition.
The second example, which we also had in the book, the skills-powered organisation, is work we did with a very large insurance company, moving all of their data scientists from a traditional job-based architecture, stuck in IT, high turnover levels, etc, moving them into a skills-powered, agile operating model, where people were not connecting to work through their job, but through projects and assignments and gigs, allowing the talent to take on opportunities across the company. And in 18 months, they saw a 600% gain in productivity. So, dramatic change. And again, it speaks to the benefits of starting with these narrow use cases, focused on specific populations, specific business problems. In the case of this insurance company, they were going from a traditional agent-based distribution model to a direct-to-consumer channel. So, the premium on these data scientists increased dramatically because the company had to stand up new digital channels, new websites, new applications, etc, mine customer data in a different way than it had previously. So, that's a second example.
[0:27:27] David Green: And that talent was able to flow to the work as and when and where it was needed, much easier than being in rigid jobs, in rigid structures and parts of the organisation.
[0:27:38] Ravin Jesuthasan: Precisely, yeah. And the company was able to leverage the talent globally across its different business lines, as opposed to its traditional legacy model where people were stuck in IT and the negotiation between a line leader and the head of IT, etc. And then, the third example, David, and it's one that's been cited for some time, is some of the initial gains that Unilever saw when they introduced the internal marketplace. I think in the first year, they were able to avoid hiring something like more than 500 people as people were able to take on projects and assignments and gigs. So, their ability to make the most of the skills and capacity that they have is often one of the early wins that we see with companies moving from traditional job-based architectures to more skills-powered marketplaces. But Brian, what would you add to that?
[0:28:34] Brian Fisher: I think talking about early Unilever days in your example, there are a lot of organisations that it doesn't even have to be heavily technology driven or a really big disruption in your organisation. Talking about starting small, starting narrow, is standing up a projects and gigs marketplace. I mean, I'm hearing these spun up in certain departments on SharePoint sites, or word of mouth, right? And so, these are early wins that can be executed with limited disruption and really leaning on discretionary effort. And so, you publish a project on a message board or within an HR platform and pretty quickly you can pull together a team of individuals that see it as an opportunity, they have the relevant skills, and they're naturally motivated to step up. Now, yeah, the winds are clear, because that work, it's completed now that otherwise may have had to wait multiple months to see the light of day, or required to hire additional staff, maybe it was left undone. And the employees, they see this, they say, "Oh, wow, you've given me additional opportunities to contribute in different ways".
Now, wow, I just I just painted a really rosy picture. But it's simple when you do it on a team and a team and a team, but there's a lot of distance between that simple example and an enterprise-wide talent marketplace strategy that integrates with strategic workforce planning. And I think it's that intentional piece, that intentional integration, that creates the lift from something that's valuable and beneficial to something that's truly transformative.
[0:30:34] David Green: And maybe let's develop that a little bit further, Brian. I mean, one of the things that struck me about skills-based approaches and organisations that are trying to become more skills-powered is the fact that there are clear business benefits, and Ravin's just articulated some of them there. But there's also clear benefits for the employee as well, in terms of career development, compensation, I guess, as well as they develop careers, diversity, equity, inclusion I've seen. Being skills-approached allows you to have maybe a broader approach when it comes to attracting and selecting talent. I'm just thinking of all the companies that you work with, beyond those quick wins, Brian, what does good look like over time, the integration that you've talked about, how do companies do that? What does a truly skills-powered organisation do differently that allows them to sustain progress and keep adapting over time?
[0:31:28] Brian Fisher: Yeah, good, great question. And I would say the true skills-powered organisations out there, they understand that they're building organisational muscle, right? So, in addition to solving the current cost crisis here, or addressing a specific team's productivity there, or department's attraction retention issue, right, these are all very important issues that they're tackling. But they're also intentionally building the muscle required to face the next challenge that's on the horizon, the next hot skill that's needed. So, they're building that muscle because really at its core, and this is highlighted in the book, Skills-Powered Organizations, these organisations that are able to sustain it, they become world class at three things. They're world-class at designing work; they're world-class at developing skills; and they're also world-class at deploying talent, right? And so, that requires some muscle.
Now, Ravin, obviously, you've written extensively on this. How do you think your thoughts on sustaining that skills-powered organisation?
[0:32:42] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, I think we've talked about this through this conversation, Brian, but I'll go back to what we said earlier, right? That this is not a point in time restructuring, where you do X and somehow it'll reset the bar. This is a transformation over time. As you said, it's about building some new muscles that the organisation has not had. But again, the prize, as we've discussed, should be worth the lift here.
[0:33:14] David Green: And I guess it's continuous transformation as well, in many respects, isn't it, Ravin?
[0:33:19] Ravin Jesuthasan: Exactly, yes.
[0:33:20] David Green: Particularly as we start thinking about AI, agentic, generative, and whatever comes next, it's becoming increasingly pervasive. How is it fundamentally reshaping the definition of a skill? And what are the most critical implications for how skills-powered organisations identify, develop, deploy talent effectively?
[0:33:42] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, David, that's such a good question. And I really think for many organisations, it is AI that is a primary impetus for this transformation, because it is rapidly shifting so many skill premiums, particularly technical skills. We've seen, in some of the work we do with the World Economic Forum, certain AI skills where the half-life has shrunk down to two-and-a-half years. So, as these skill premiums shift dramatically and significantly, what you're seeing is new skills emerging, growing primacy on the human skills, if you will, the ability to communicate with empathy, critical thinking, the ability to sort of understand and apply logic to what AI might be telling you, to challenge what may appear to be a good answer. But not having the critical thinking, you might propagate something that's complete nonsense in the business. So, that shifting skill premium between technical and human, and then obviously the growing skills required for people to work with AI, the most obvious one being prompt design and prompt engineering, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, right? Knowing what questions to ask, but being able to sort of continuously craft new and different solutions alongside AI, I think, are just some of the changes that we're seeing to the skills landscape.
[0:35:12] David Green: I've had a couple of conversations recently with people doing workforce planning within their organisations. And they say one of the big challenges that they have is that when they go out to speak to business leaders about their needs in the next, let's say the next two to three years, let's not go too far into the future, next two to three years, a lot of the answers they get back is, "We don't know because the technology is changing so fast. It's hard for us to think about what skills we need in two to three years' time". What would be your answer to that, because I'm sure that's a question that you get a lot in your work?
[0:35:50] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, I'll maybe start off and, Brian, please chime in. But one of the things that we often do, David, to that specific question is, nobody knows what skills are going to be demanded sort of three or four years from now. However, we've got different markers of that changing profile. There's great data from companies like Lightcast and Rebellion lab, etc, that give you some insight into what's emerging. And so, we often frame it as, "What are the skills that are emergent; what are the ones that are trending up and the ones that are trending down? And those three things give you a really good picture of the changing profile of demand for work and skills. And then, you've got the opportunity then to overlay against that customer data, shifting technology data in terms of changing machine capabilities. So, you end up through what we think of as sort of a data mosaic, if you will, with AI overlaid onto it, with some really interesting insights and different scenarios of what the demand for work might look like with all of these different inputs, and then what that means for the different skills required, which is a truly powerful input into workforce planning as you might expect
[0:37:12] David Green: And with that external data that you talked about, and then, Brian, I'll let you talk to that afterwards as well, is it's very much actually the person doing the workforce planning bringing that to the business leader and saying, "This is some data, some insights about skills that you typically have hired for in the past, and this is what we can see changing. This is what we see your competitors are hiring for, for example, this is how the skills profile is changing". So, it's bringing that insight to the business leader.
[0:37:38] Brian Fisher: Yeah, and I absolutely agree. I mean, there's just amazing data that's out there now. But it's also meeting that team where they are and understanding their work, right? And so, it is extremely valuable to see emerging skills, waning skills, but it's equally as important to understand the tasks and the work itself and how that is going to change over time. And so, certainly that's a piece about this, is we have so much data that's available that you have to process it, synthesise it, and make it fit for your organisation, because if you go in every direction that the data takes you, you're going to be worn out after a minute or so, because you're going to be flying in a bunch of different directions. And so, that's that important frame, whether that's the workforce planning team, the HR business partner, or we're building that muscle within the line leadership, to critically think about the work that's needed, to have a structured methodology to think about the work, how that translates to skills, and then how can we deploy talent to that work going forward.
[0:39:11] David Green: And you may want to connect what we've been talking about for the last 40 minutes or so to the next question, which is the question of the series. So, this is a question we're asking all the guests on this series, which Mercer is kindly sponsoring. How can HR help the organisation understand and improve team effectiveness?
[0:39:30] Brian Fisher: Let me drill down a few levels to the individual. So, individuals thrive when their skills are recognised and utilised. And so, they thrive when the employer sees their potential and provides opportunities for them to realise it. And so, that makes sense, right? So, when we're thinking about what HR has the ability to do, when it comes to rethinking work and redesigning work that is sustainable for sustained employability, when it comes to developing skills, and then also when it comes to deploying talent, so when people are deployed to work, whether that's the form of a job, a project, or gig, based on their skills and their potential, outsized impacts are possible, right? And obviously, we've been talking about that that's not a one-time event. It's when the organisation, when HR has the ability to continuously deploy talent to work based on those things, that's when you become a skills-powered organisation, and that's how you create effective teams, because those individuals are then thriving in their roles and how they're contributing. Ravin, what are your thoughts on that?
[0:40:54] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, Brian, I'll just add a couple of additional things. I think, David, as we all know, as we've talked about here, every organisation is going to be a machine- or AI-augmented one. And so, I think HR's ability to help the business achieve those optimal combinations across the organisation, across teams, is going to be really important. Too many organisations throw, "Pick your technology of choice", at the organisation and then pray that people will adopt them, pray that there will be uptake and utilisation. The problem is, unless HR leads the way with intentional work design, it's always going to be a hit-or-miss proposition. The three of us might do the same job, but if, David, you're the one most prolific in using GenAI, and Brian and I are sitting on our hands and starting with a blank sheet of paper every time, the gap in productivity between you and us is going to be exponential. And I think this is really where HR can lead the way in instituting intentional redesign of work around some of these machine capabilities, and drive some of that transformation in the organisation and in the effectiveness of teams.
[0:42:11] David Green: And I guess this is where leaders in the organisation, managers, need to role model. They need to use these tools as well, don't they?
[0:42:18] Ravin Jesuthasan: Absolutely.
[0:42:21] David Green: Well, I think we could probably talk all day about this topic, but we do need to part. So, Ravin, Brian, thank you so much for your time today. It's been fascinating learning about some of the research that you're doing and the work you're doing with clients around this topic. Before we part, could you let listeners know how they can follow all the great work that you do for the field? So, Brian, I'll come to you first and then I'll let you finish off, Ravin.
[0:42:45] Brian Fisher: Yeah, thank you. I mean, mercer.com is a wonderful source for a lot of our thought leadership and our articles. And I think both Ravin and I, or I'm personally active on LinkedIn, so you can find me there as well.
[0:43:00] David Green: Perfect. And Ravin?
[0:43:01] Ravin Jesuthasan: Yeah, so in addition to mercer.com, I also have my website, ravinjesuthasan.com, and active on LinkedIn and X and a number of the other social media platforms.
[0:43:15] David Green: And for those of you listening that haven't already purchased a copy of The Skills-Powered Organisation by Ravin and Tanuj Kapilashrami, I would definitely recommend it. You can see it, if you're watching our video, just up there as well. So, Ravin, Brian, thank you so much for being on the show. Take care. I look forward to seeing you in person hopefully soon.
[0:43:35] Ravin Jesuthasan: Thank you, David.
[0:43:38] David Green: Thank you to Ravin and Brian for joining me and sharing such a rich and timely perspective on what it takes to build a truly skills-powered organisation, and how this is reshaping approaches to strategic workforce planning. If today's episode sparked ideas, questions, or even a shift in perspective, don't forget to subscribe, rate and share the episode 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. And for a more practical take on Mercer's Insights in Action, make sure to tune in next week, as we have a very special guest who will be taking us into the everyday practices of what it takes to be a leading skills-based organisation. 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.