• Sujatha, people are still catching up with the concept of skill-based organizations, right? So, to set a context for all our viewers, can you explain what a Skill-based organization entails, and how it differs from the traditional hierarchical structure?

Sujatha: Okay, let me start with the traditional hierarchical structure which used to be there, which people are more aware of, that relies mostly on different levels of authority. There’s a chain of command, it is a lot more formal, and the flow is top-down. Sometimes decisions also take a lot of time because of all of this, whereas skill-based organizations are more agile. And I think this has been more prevalent because agility is something that every organization and customer looks for. We want things as fast as possible and therefore the changing environment needs to be agile. So, it has a lot of people-centric approaches. That’s what I probably see. Here people are valued more for their skills rather than just a position that they may have or a level they may have reached in an organization. In this type of operating model, you find it easier to align people to the task or the applications based on their skills rather than a particular level or a position for that matter.

There’s a lot more emphasis on the capabilities and interests of people also that comes in and that in turn it helps in focusing on developing adequate skill sets. It also helps organizations optimize and search for the right person from their own talent pool. The most beautiful thing about this approach would be, as I said, it’s their human-centric approach that allows them to understand what the workforce is bringing onto the table and where you can proactively equip them to succeed for tomorrow. Or in short, any organization focusing on the skill-based structure can respond to everyday changes more efficiently, thus boosting agility, adaptability, and new businesses.

Rajiv: Okay, firstly, I think the explanation offered by Sujata is spot on. I just want to add a few data points from the Deloitte survey as they have done a lot of work on skill-based organizations. 63% of executives say the work in their organizations is currently being performed in teams or projects outside of people’s core job descriptions. Simply put, 63% of the job that you would like to get done is being done in teams or projects outside of people’s core job descriptions. So, in such cases, we don’t know if the right people are doing the right jobs, whether they are being productive, performing well, or even in terms of fairness. The person is hired for something but is doing something else completely. 81% of executives say that work is increasingly getting performed across functional boundaries. So, what does that tell you? You don’t have control over your own deliverables, you’re dependent on so many other teams and you can’t control the kind of talent that’s available in other teams. So that’s a challenge as well. 36% of people said that work is increasingly being performed by workers outside of the organization who do not have defined jobs in the organization at all. Think about the gig economy. Many industries tend to depend on gig economies and as per the survey, almost 36% of the jobs are done by external people. It could be partners, it could be vendors, it could be individuals. In this case, as well, you don’t have complete control over who’s getting stuff done. And finally, 42% of respondents say that their organization’s JD (job description) actually captures the work to be done.

So that’s alarming in a way because the entire business journey we know of today, where employees are hired, they get hired based on a certain job description. If that job description, to begin with, does not capture what needs to be done, the problem starts right there and then. After that, since you don’t have the right people for the job, you will have to catch up and train people extensively for the job. I think this is a reason why organizations now feel the need to move away from a job-based model to a skill-based model. Because at the end of the day, if you have a job to do, a business outcome to be achieved, it is a skill that will help you achieve that instead of something static called a job which nobody is able to put his or her hand around. So that’s essentially the reason why we are seeing the emergence of skill-based organizations.

• How do organizations ensure that the skills of their employees are aligned with the dynamic needs of the business?

Rajiv: So that’s a challenge. When we talk to CLOs in organizations, they have a valid point that the business cycles are shrinking, and new technologies keep emerging each day. With rapid technology change, the skill set required changes as well. But your talent pipeline is not very agile. So constantly leaders are evaluating “Should I be building this new skill in the context of change. How long does it take me to build that new skill? Or do I go out and acquire that new skill, and hire for that purpose? Or do I do the gig economy, and borrow those skills? Or is this something that I can automate away?” So, this is a decision that one needs to take continuously. And I think there are economics involved here. Build versus buy. There’s a certain economic reality to that. Sometimes it may be wise to build it, other times it might be wise to go out and buy the talent from the external market. Now, this model has been in existence for a long time, but I think what is critical now is the cycle times are getting shorter and shorter. So, because of this reality, everything from talent acquisition to talent development to what skills have to be developed, to what extent will the learning leaders be in touch with business leaders? As business changes, are we able to build new skills? Right? Or does this proactively see some change coming? Can we proactively build a few things? We cannot be silos anymore. We need to be integrated with business and become advisors to the business. In fact, instead of taking sort of an order saying this program needs to be done, can we become advisors to businesses saying in the next twelve to 18 months these are the skills that need to be built for achieving our business outcome? So, I think the partnership with the business has to be established right up front.

Sujatha: I completely agree with what Rajiv  said. The integration part and how you need to partner with the business are the most important. And that’s what we will also be doing. Without this, I don’t think learning can really support. As a team, we cannot support our associates to truly perform. One aspect I would like to share is within Tavant, we very strongly go with the OKR (Objective and Key Results) which truly help us to focus and have a clear focus and direction. And every quarter we have both commits as well as stretch goals. So that really helps us both, whether it is products or the projects that we deliver. And in line with that, the learning is also being developed in terms of whether it’s a program, whether it is something on the reskilling or an upskilling or new things that are coming through. All of this is tied based on what are the organization’s goals. So, one clear aspect that we see is you have the organization goals connected with the customer and then of course, based on those needs, we have the business goals coming in, the team, and the functional goals which are there. And that gets drilled down to the associates. So very easily a person is able to look at their goals and say where are we adding value? And that actually ties up the whole thing. I think it is moving away from just being a specialist like you have a Java professional. Now today we look at a full stack. They need to understand end-to-end that is being appreciated by people and that’s where the alignment truly helps.

• Would you have an example of a successful skills-based project or initiative that your organization has implemented?

Sujatha: At Tavant , we’ve been following the Agile methodology for quite some time. You definitely need to understand the changes in the environment, the customer requirements, and what is changing, and we’ve been able to do that very well. We’ve also encouraged our associates to go ahead and learn upcoming technologies which are out there. We feel this is something that can add value to our products, or the product based on the customer’s requirements because we have a very good rapport with the customer. There’s a co-creation. We understand what technologies they are planning to use and we encourage them to go ahead and learn and get certified in those so that industry-based standards are met. We give them some of the projects internally to have hands-on experience and build their expertise. Now, this has really helped us in multiple ways. We’ve had a couple of conversion projects. Some of the customers moved away from Azure to AWS because they wanted to do that. Similarly, there was a conversion project from Power BI to Tableau. That is another project very recently weighed. There are big data projects which probably require more additional resources since they were using Informatica ETL for bringing in data from every source. These things we were able to quickly pick up because people were skilled in those areas. And this is where we started using those skill bases which we had created. So, for us, naturally, we are looking at the skill-based part rather than any specific job role. This in turn has been a huge advantage for us as the nimbleness or agility in terms of the responses that we are able to give to the customers is also very critical for us.

Rajiv: Yeah, so a few examples that I can think of from the industry, to begin with, are organizations such as in advertising, for example, which tend to go project to project, or IT services, which are predominantly done in a project-based fashion. I think it’s relatively easier to think in terms of skill-based organizations compared to, let’s say, an R&D-driven company when you speak about skill-based organizations and fast-changing circumstances sometimes. I was talking to these researchers just a couple of weeks ago about skill-based organizations. They were saying it takes them five to six years to mature a technology. Even within that, you are now thinking in terms of rapid iterations, right? You don’t go waterfall into six years, but you are constantly doing a persevering pivot, maybe at the end of every six months, every year. So even in longer-term projects, so to speak, in an R&D context, one can really think in terms of skills. What does it take for me to go from milestone A to milestone B? Instead of taking a six-year view, can I take a year-long view and just think in terms of skills needed to go from point A to point B? While different organizations are at different levels, when it comes to being skill-based, whether it’s project-driven or product-driven, or R&D driven, you see a different approach to this. But at the end of the day, one underlying reality across all of this is business cycles are getting shorter. Even product development cycles, when you talk about R&D today, are getting shorter as well. So, I think this thought process is applicable across and one thing I’ve seen companies do well is they create an internal marketplace for talent. If, let’s say, there is a platform internally where there are projects listed and then there are people on the other side who want to bid for it and they make their skills available for the organization, they somehow unlock and make this entire process more transparent. Somewhere I think a talent audit needs to be done across the board. Who is skilled in what? Can that be visualized? And when a new opportunity shows up, are we able to assemble these people for that new opportunity? I think those are some infrastructure changes that can happen inside companies.

• How can organizations handle employees’ career development in a skill-based structure?

Rajiv: Yeah, so that’s an interesting one. When I wrote the book ‘Clearing the Digital Blur’, I was actually spending a lot of time on this because B in Blur represents ‘boundaryless organizations’, which means that internal silos that exist within teams, sort of blur away. When that happens, employees suddenly find themselves working a lot more with other stakeholders within the organization they may not have direct control over. So, it’s basically how you work in a network setup. Now we have pivoted to more of a distributed networked model. And I think a lot of us are not ready for that kind of new way of working. We are still very comfortable with having a leader telling us what to do and it’s very structured. Suddenly being thrown open in a network and saying you go figure it out is a little bit of a challenge. However, what does it require? What does the individual have to do? One, get comfortable with the lack of boundaries in terms of the teams that I will interact with, and the stakeholders that I need to influence, that’s on the softer side. In terms of technical skills or process skills, I think the key element is more than what is to be learned, the focus is on the learner himself or herself. Do you have a growth mindset? Do you have learning agility? Those are some fundamental skills because what’s on top will keep changing, the technical skills will change, and processes will keep changing. But I think what we need to enable people with is a set of these foundational skills like a growth mindset. Don’t get stuck in a box, explore, also be agile when it comes to learning. So I think if we can build that into people and create a learning culture it will be really beneficial.

Sujatha :  I think the three critical terms that Rajiv just mentioned are boundary-less, learning, agility, and growth mindset. That is the fundamental foundation. I would probably say that we are focusing on the customer base that we have, and the industries that we work with. And we help or at least create awareness in people that these are some of the technologies which are used in the project. You may want to hone your expertise and knowledge in that area. Second, we do provide a lot of support for aspirations as well. Some people want to change certain mindsets, like people who want to take up certain risks and try different areas. So we’ve had programs, we have a program called ‘Spring Within’ wherein we encourage people to move from one area to any other area that they want to really take up. So there have been people who have moved from Java to Python or for that matter let’s say from somebody from quality engineering moving it to salesforce based on various options which are there. And I truly agree with Rajiv saying like a talented marketplace, we do open up our opportunities to people internally trying to say these are things that are coming up, and based on their aspirations and their interests, we also support them in learning and picking up those areas as well. So that’s how we try to help them.

In addition to that, we are developing a capability library. We have created three different levels for every technology. Basic-intermediate, intermediate-advance and advanced-expert. We provide hands-on learning in these libraries. That’s how we are trying to provide support to people. They can learn through self-study or even a cohort that encourages peer-to-peer learning. They have subject matter experts assigned to them so they can go back and ask any doubts. Once they have achieved a certain level of expertise, they are given different case studies or projects, or problem statements are given to them which have a lot of complexity. So, they gain a lot more hands-on experience and get a lot of confidence before they move on to a project. So that’s how we are trying to create a capability library within the organization.

• How can organizations manage cross-functional collaboration and skills’ sharing within the company?

Rajiv: So, this is a cultural question. How open our teams are when it comes to allowing their talent, the people within their team to work on something else? So, one of the cultural pillars for being boundary-less is being open, peering and sharing. And usually, this is talked about in the context of data. So, in an open boundary list organization, data sort of floats around seamlessly, it’s borderless. You use data to gather insight into things and that’s a challenge in itself, right? Because the sales team doesn’t want the marketing team to see how the numbers are going, the production team doesn’t want to see how much buffer they have got and all of that. So even with data, it is an issue. Now, think about people in a boundary-less organization, the organizational structure must be open enough like a marketplace, which is the idea we spoke about. And then you have to allow for collaboration to happen across teams. If an organization cannot collaborate, it will be disrupted. That’s the conclusion you can come to. So, openness, collaboration, and sharing of resources, meaning that 20% of the time this individual needs to be free for something else, an aspirational project, building on what Sujata was mentioning. So, openness, peering, and sharing, these three elements have to be built into an organizational cultural DNA. This is not an individual, this is not just a few teams, but it has to be baked into the organizational culture itself.

Sujatha: I’ll give you a different lens to look at and build upon what Rajeev just mentioned. From a learning team also, I always believe it’s not just about giving an opportunity and somebody just picking up something, but it’s also about true knowledge sharing. There’s a lot that is there as experience that we gain when we try to implement certain aspects that we have learned. So, in our organization, we have built that culture in the last few years very successfully. We have several knowledge-sharing initiatives that have happened and finally because I sensed a gap when we were initially trying to look at the learning aspects like Rajiv said, it may be intentional, or it may not be intentional, for example, people are working in the same architecture or technology, but they’re working in different verticals. So, we have practices and verticals within the organization. We have fintech, we have manufacturing, we have media and let’s assume one technology is being worked in manufacturing. Naturally, within that group, there may be occasions where they come together and they share, but it’s not shared organization wide. So, we brought these different knowledge-sharing forums like ‘Knowledge Art’ which talks about the domain, especially if I have learned something new, I can come back and it’s open to anybody to come and speak. No hierarchy, nothing. Anyone can come back and share what they have learned about a specific technology or a domain or even some of the leadership concepts which are there. Then we have ‘Projectiles’, where either a single person or a team can come back and share how they have implemented a particular technology within the projects. What has been the scope, what has been the risk, what have been the challenges, and how did they mitigate them? So, the entire way of implementation experience is being shared with people. And this has really been successful. We also share these recordings that are posted as a repository so people can go back and if they miss out on a particular session that is happening, then we have ‘Knowledge Hubs’ which actually help your learning.

So, there are a set of people who want to do AWS certification for example, and we give them this entire cohort. We give them the infrastructure, the materials to prepare SMEs, and their subject matter experts who are with them and support them. So that’s a knowledge hub. And then finally, even for hobbies, we have one which is called ‘Knowledge Club’ where they come back, and they share about different things which they are interested in. Somebody has shared on yoga, somebody has shared on a collection of watches, and so on.

So, we don’t restrict it to only work, but it’s also onto both and that also brings in a lot of people, which is somebody who has the same type of hobby also helps people to build rapport, know the person and then slowly and steadily work. Very recently we started something called ‘Art Studio’ which targeted all the architects across the organization so that they can come back and share different architectural views and how they have been implemented in the various projects. I think this cross-functional collaboration could be across the entire organization per se or even target groups working in multiple businesses which truly helps to build on the knowledge that people and the experience people have gained through implementation. I think it’s a very good concept and it should be there. Otherwise, movement in today’s changing world is not possible because definitely people have different experiences. Bringing that diverse experience together makes a good part in delivering the best outcomes

• How can an organization measure the success of its skills-based approach?

Sujatha: Okay, so we do have health metrics like people attending, number of hours, and all of that to ensure that people are coming but to look at the effectiveness, I think we believe in the impacts that are created. So if I were to say that particular project where we had the conversion, if I were to take that particular example from AWS to Azure, the customer was moving from one cloud to the other, whatever various reasons they may have. Because we were having these open sessions, people came back and attended to see what is new and what is different in AWS. People come and speak about it, or they come and hear about those projects. It was very easy for people to quickly pick it up and convert it within a limited period of time while working on the project. They were not sitting on a bench or they were not free that way. They took out at least 2 hours a day to learn and understand the changes and then converted the whole thing. So I think the key area I would say is the impact that we create. That is what I would look at as a mission over here.

Rajiv: Yeah, I was just thinking through this. So back to what I was saying earlier. An organization would definitely have a build versus buy kind of approach to talent. So maybe there is some real cost dollar attached to this, right? The building budget versus the buying budget. So, am I able to meet from a talent perspective the build versus buy mix? And for that, being a great skill-based organization in today’s context is critical because otherwise, you won’t be able to build talent on demand. So that is probably something one can look at. Even productivity, for example, a new opportunity comes up, let’s say in an IT services kind of a context, maybe Pfizer says on Metaverse that they need 1000 people to work on a project. Number one, are we able to serve something like that in the quick turnaround kind of fashion which may be a measurement, there could be opportunity loss, there was an opportunity on the table, but we could not cater to that. Either that or the time to productivity. So now that I have X number of people identified, how quickly can I get them onboarded on this project? So, some of these are traditional metrics, no doubt. But in the context of a skill-based organization, some of these become accelerated. Now, are you able to keep up with that? I think that is the key question.

Sujatha: If I may just add one more point here. While Rajiv was speaking, I was remembering a lot of organizations who have moved into this pod structure wherever it is possible. Sometimes you’re working with the customers, and they are also co-partnering, so therefore there’s a lot more involvement from them. But otherwise, we find that as a pod structure, this product-oriented model, in the software development context, if I were to say where people come from, diverse skills come together. So, you have a project manager, you have a DevOps person, so there is a design, develop, test, operate, all of that coming together. That also helps in creating efficiency while we are working. So that measure can also be implemented where we can bring in the diverse group together.

• So, the next question is related to larger organizations. And while it might be surprising, a lot of these leading large organizations are very much driven and led by structures, right? And they are still operating on a traditional model. So, for such large organizations, which have a lot of teams and so many departments and so many projects going on, how challenging is it for them to make that shift from a traditional model to, say, a skills-based model within the organization?

 Rajiv: Yeah, in some parts of the organization, let’s say finance or supply chain, maybe you want to have some traditional structures to sort of govern, to have some compliance around it. So, in such cases, structure helps a lot. But in other areas where one needs to actually be very agile, where it’s okay to take risks, the whole idea is to fail fast and learn fast. Maybe the organization can assign self-managed teams, and make it a little bit more agile, while still preserving the hierarchical structure. At some point, all of these need to roll up into a hierarchical structure. But to what extent can we decentralize? This is, I think, an important element. Again, the idea is, how can we move fast? So maybe some parts of the organization can be a lot more decentralized. And within the scope of those self-managed teams, start looking at a more skill-based way of the entire employee lifecycle, from talent acquisition to development to promotion. Of this, one can look at it from a skill-based lens instead of a traditional job lens.

Sujatha: I think these large-size or small-size organization challenges will definitely be there. As Rajiv said, it is something that people need to look at from a different lens. I think people need to change their mindset and truly understand and practice continual and lifelong learning. The two aspects I would highlight here are one, from a learner’s perspective, be open to learning, unlearning, and relearning. But I think the quote from Marshall Goldsmith is the most relevant one here – “What got you here will not get you there”. So definitely people need to be open to unlearning, look at the different ways which are there, and relearn so that they would have multiple different approaches to the same problem that they are trying to solve. The second part of it is in terms of the stages of competence, which is there, which we call this unconscious incompetence, which is more to do with ignorance. A lot of people, when we try to talk to them, may not have heard about a certain aspect. So, the learning fraternity needs to make sure that those are brought in front of them, so at least they are aware that the thing is there and there is an opportunity over here. Moving on to the next one is conscious incompetence or awareness. Once they know and at least they have properly tried their hands at it, they know where they are lacking and they’re able to build those skill sets. Then once they know the concept, the third triggers the conscious competence where people are aware in terms of learning, they can make a lot of mistakes, but the integral part here is of creating. The moment they know the concepts, how much are they practicing? And that practice is what leads them to mastery. So, if people within an organization, whatever levels they may be, understand this concept it will be easier for them to transition.

• What is probably the best way to start the transition toward becoming a skills-based organization?

Rajiv: So, I’m a big believer in the minimum viable approach and that’s the heart of agile thinking in any case. So, I think when we are thinking about building a skill-based organization, identify that minimum viable team or a minimum viable process or product or project where you would like to implement this, I think that’s a starting point. And then my belief is also that context can differ from industry to industry, company to company. There is a cultural element as well. So, it’s not a one size fit all kind of model. One needs to sort of learn and improvise. The other approach that I would recommend is a build measure. Again, coming from the Lean Startup approach. So, once you have identified the minimum viable project or the product where you would like to implement this, build measure and learn and make it, iteratively perfect.

Sujatha: I do agree with the agile methodology because people understand when it’s an agile methodology, you can prioritize, iterate, and then build on it. So, implementing those methodologies in any area function will help in having a common language of skills across the organization, especially in application and development. Also, when you’re managing the performance of people, help them to understand and appreciate skill-based development. The talent marketplace, as Rajiv mentioned, giving people those opportunities to choose the kind of problem they want to solve or the department they want to work in can really help. Also, the moment people do it themselves, there’s a lot more engagement and productivity toward doing something in the best manner possible. From a learning perspective, learning and knowledge management or change are all part of these entire aspects. So, bringing people together, especially in today’s world of adaptive learning or social learning, or giving them opportunities beyond just formal sessions or resources is something that I would definitely recommend. There needs to be a balance between formal and informal learning. Last but not the least, I think transforming the entire talent management strategy within an organization that includes skills or focuses on skills, whether it’s upskilling, reskilling, or cross killing, is something that will help people to move forward in today’s changing world.