Office Hours #1: Why Companies Need to Look Beyond Job Titles
As companies are moving towards becoming Skills-Based Organisations, skills are high on the agenda of CEOs, CHROs and Talent Leaders alike. In this video series, TechWolf's CEO Andreas De Neve breaks down various skills-related subjects and their impact on business and strategy.
In the past months, I’ve had countless conversations with CHROs and business leaders of companies in transformation, and one major topic keeps coming up: the role or the job title that people have, is no longer descriptive of their actual skills or of their future-proofness.
Within your industry, think of the company that’s most advanced. Then, think of one of the companies that is least advanced.
Now picture a role that will play a key role in the digital transformation. For example: an application developer for the banking industry.
Now, imagine swapping 100 application developers from the most advanced company to the least advanced company.
How would that impact their chances at being successful?
Even though these people might have the same job title, the same job description or were hired for similar vacancies, their actual skills differ quite a lot.
If you truly want to understand how well prepared your workforce is for transformation, how the skills in your workforce are evolving, how the labour market is evolving, you need to dig deeper into the workforce.
Having 100 developers or having 100 application developers no longer checks the box.
People want to know, in a bank for example: “Do we have 100 people who are able to develop these mobile first banking applications?” The question is not: “Do we have 100 people with an IT background?”
It’s not about the role or job title, it’s about the skills that people have.
