“ WE DON’T TALK ABOUT SOCIAL MOBILITY ENOUGH WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WORK AND SKILLS. GENDER TOO. WE KNOW WOMEN ARE LESS LIKELY TO PUT THEMSELVES FORWARD. THIS IS WHY TAKING AN INTERSECTIONAL APPROACH IS REALLY IMPORTANT.”
JC TOWNEND, CEO, LHH & COUNTRY PRESIDENT OF ADECCO
“[We have figured] out for every job we have, what are
the core skills required? What are some optional skills? So now that’s transparently available to all employees in the company. So, as they think about, aspirationally, what job may [they] want to aspire to, now they can see what are those skills. Maybe they can identify other exemplars and start to take ownership of what are the skills they’re acquiring so that they really have intention about how they hope to evolve their professional career. British broadcaster and telecommunications
company, Sky, is also firmly linking people development to its business strategy and supporting people to add value to their skills. Mindful of how technology is changing the skills it needs in the short- to medium- term, the broadcaster is taking a purposeful approach to future skills development. It is looking through several lenses, including core and technical skills. Basing its future skills requirements on those
identified by McKinsey, Sky has made those including digital awareness, curiosity, agile thinking and resilience central. It is now raising their visibility internally. Each skill has an executive sponsor. The company organises learning pathways and panel events with leaders from across the business to debate the skill to try and get more visibility around it. “It’s important people understand the importance of future-proofing themselves for the years ahead,” said Sophie Holmes, Sky’s group head of future skills development and a panellist at the CIPD’s 2024 annual conference session on ‘Sustaining momentum in career development to enhance workforce productivity’. “On the more technical end, that’s really been
thinking about partnership with our strategic workforce planning team to understand the long-range plan for Sky, and what that means for skills and roles. It’s a lot harder. We’ve had detailed workshops with the leadership team to understand what the strategy is, unpicked what the skills would look like and wrapped a programme of learning around that. For example, being more data literate – how might we build those? We’ve looked at core skills and technical skills to start building this narrative around preparing for the future.”
46
FUTURE-PROOFING & ENGAGEMENT BUILDING Approaches like these are not without their challenges. The first is how to encourage an increasingly detached workforce to take ownership of their own learning and development. The second is often a cultural shift to encourage line managers to release established and high- performing team members for personal development opportunities and lateral moves to other parts of the business. Third, is the generational and inclusion elements. “Progression at work is essential for both the
workforce and the growth of an organisation,” said Barbara Matthews, employer of record Remote’s chief people officer, commenting on findings in its ‘2024 Global Workforce Report’. “The disengagement micro- trends we see today are a concern as many businesses are not acting fast enough to address the wider issue of today’s great detachment in the workplace. “Seeing data that suggests Gen Z doesn’t want to
become middle managers is one of the first instances where disengagement trends in the workplace are having a quantifiable impact on the world of work itself,” she said. Highlighting this problem for talent pipelines and accenting the importance of healthy workplaces, she continued: “Our survey data indicates creating an environment that protects work-life balance creates sustained productivity and engagement, suggesting the onus is on businesses to once again make progression and ambition at work more appealing and valued.” Linking in with the trends for Gen Z and also older
workers to not want managerial responsibility, but to grow their career and skills is accenting the value of sideways moves. “Seeing lateral [moves] as progression; what are you valuing and storytelling around it and the impact of those moves?” said Sky’s Sophie Holmes. “What tools are in your toolbox? It’s powerful to be able to see the value of that. People are going to need to be more adaptable so [skills] breadth is somewhere we can start to make that progress.” Fellow CIPD panellist JC Townend, CEO of career transition provider LHH and country president of its
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86
