Employees hired because they show promise are 1.9-times more likely to perform effectively than those hired for skill proficiency, according to a March 12 report from Gartner.
Talent management and learning and development leaders can work together to boost internal mobility and company performance when they do not require workers to show proficiency in all skills before shifting them to new roles, the report found.
“Many organizations are transforming their capabilities so rapidly that they can’t acquire all the skills they need — the talent either doesn’t exist or is too expensive,” Meaghan Kelly, a director in the Gartner HR practice, said in a statement. “This puts more pressure on organizations to build skills internally, but unfortunately, most organizations are not building skills fast enough to fill critical roles.”
In a survey of 190 HR leaders, 48% agreed that the demand for new skills is evolving faster than existing talent structures and processes can support. However, in another survey of 3,200 employees, only 28% said their company places importance on building on promise.
To speed up skills development and internal mobility, HR leaders need to shift from building proficiency to building on promise, Gartner said, defining promise as “a willingness and ability to learn new skills from a minimum foundation.”
One of the biggest challenges to hiring on promise, though, includes identifying employees with promise, the report found. About 51% of managers said they request recruiters to only focus on recruiting employees with all desired skills when recruiting internally.
However, waiting for someone with all of the exact skills can shrink the pool of potential candidates, Gartner said. To encourage this new approach, recruiters should illustrate for managers what promise looks like for in-demand skills, as well as how it might look to transform promise into performance.
In addition, offering support to employees after hiring them based on promise is crucial, the report found. To lift the burden of support off managers, organizations can implement skills-based learning networks, which are programs that include the employee, their manager, learning and development staff, talent management staff and subject matter experts. Implementing this network approach can double the impact on skills preparedness versus the 1-on-1 support approach, according to Gartner research.
Skills gaps can cost employers a month of productivity each year, according to a Multiverse report. About half of workers struggle with efficient data analysis, process automation and forecasting.
For successful skills-based hiring, employers need a clear vision, to empower their leaders and to create a supportive budget, according to a case report from OneTen, which focused on Cisco’s efforts to adopt a skills-first hiring approach. The new strategy expanded Cisco’s talent pipeline and led to a 96% retention rate among skills-first hires.
