HRHeadStart #71: The State of Skills; Inspiration from a Business Leader; Saying Yes/No

The Talent Agenda

Employees are not assets; they are investors who invest with their capital (skills, time and motivation) in exchange for a return. In recent times, a lot of attention has been centered on the skill part of the equation. With the shifts in business models and technology, there’s a lot of emphasis on upskilling and reskilling the workforce to meet current and future business needs.

BCG recently analyzed the annual reports of some of the largest US companies to see how they reported skill-building efforts and associated KPIs.

Some key findings:

• Skill building initiatives are not closely linked to business strategy. Only a quarter of companies position their skill building efforts in the context of the business strategy and most view it as an HR initiative.

• Most companies report activities (e.g. training hours, number of certifications issued etc.) instead of outcomes (e.g. productivity gains, technology adoption, employee engagement etc.).

• Skill building is often reported as a cost instead of an investment into the future of the enterprise and the workforce, making it susceptible to budget cuts and deprioritization.

You can dive deeper here. Another interesting report here on how key occupations are being disrupted with the emergence of new skills.

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Working Better

Check out this amazing interview with Brian Chesky (Co-founder of Airbnb). It is chock full of insights and inspiration on topics like overcoming rejection, building something that people love, crisis management.

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Tiny Thought

When you say no to something, you are just blocking that one thing. When you say yes to something, you are saying no to every other thing that you could have done in that time. Choose to say “yes” carefully.