Rapid advances in AI, automation and other technologies are changing the nature of work, creating new skill requirements while making others less critical. Organizations need a better way to understand the capabilities they have today and the capabilities they will need tomorrow.
A skills-first approach provides that visibility, enabling more effective workforce planning, talent mobility, reskilling and hiring decision. WTW helps clients like you define infrastructure for work as well as identify, manage and maintain the skills you need to achieve your business results in an evolving landscape.
Taking a skills-first approach is critical for your business to meet its objectives and stand out in a competitive talent landscape. Linking your skills strategy to a solid job architecture provides connection and continuity among the business, how your jobs are organized and, ultimately, how you measure performance and reward your employees.
There are three integrated parts to a career framework:
How you can establish a skills-first strategy
- Establish a career ecosystem: You can establish an overarching career ecosystem by building on a solid career framework, which is comprised of job leveling, job architecture and knowledge architecture. Doing this provides connection and continuity among the business, how your jobs are organized and, ultimately, how you measure performance and reward your employees.
- Develop an overarching skills strategy and optimize your skills: A successful approach to skills requires a fit-for-purpose skills strategy. Whether you want to develop a custom skills taxonomy or buy a single off-the-shelf solution, we can help you enhance your approach — quickly. We’ll help you consider key factors for your strategy, including the alignment of skills to your job architecture as well as the granularity of skills.
- Forecast and embrace future skills needs: From a skills perspective, a clear link to job architecture and job leveling creates a mechanism to understand and forecast your jobs and skills needs based on the work being done in your organization today as well as what will be needed in the future.
TechWolfTechWolf's AI-powered skills inference engine maps workforce capabilities at scale — without relying on self-reported data. Together with TechWolf, we help organizations build dynamic skills taxonomies that underpin smarter workforce planning, pay equity analysis and career architecture design.
Prepare for the changing nature of work
Your organization needs to think about how HR programs and processes can support new ways of working and realistically implement them. At WTW, we delve into your work strategy to determine your key business drivers and technology plans:
Understand the data
Start with an analysis of the overall existing job architecture, considering the roles that currently are in place and how the requirements for work are changing now and in the future.
Design a knowledge architecture
Identify the competencies and skills required for work and develop a clear organization-wide approach to linking these to jobs and people.
Map skills
Lean on data to verify talent supply and demand. Assess people on the skills required for their job (supply) and map skills to work (demand). This will help you understand the type of skills you have today, and the gaps to close to get the skills you need tomorrow.
Enable talent applications
Create transparency for your talent to connect on new work and further their ambition in meaningful, purpose-driven work.
At WTW, we believe in building a clear, defined global career framework to provide a clear view of the work being done and the skills that are required to achieve the right business outcomes.
Learn how we can help
“Organizations around the world are going through a period of work transformation. A clearly defined architecture of the jobs and skills that exist is vital before they can begin to get the most out of automation.”Ruchi Arora, Work Transformation Leader, Western Europe
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