Adopting a Skills-Based Approach with Steve Holder, Visier

Business is transforming at a faster pace than ever. It is no longer possible, says today's guest, to hire your way to success or to rely on the locked-in structures of roles and traditional career paths. To ensure your people and their capabilities evolve in support of your business needs you must look deeper and understand people at the level of their skill.

Our guest this time is Steve Holder, Vice President, Solution Advisory at Visier Inc. and speaker at the Agility Reimagined Summit on March 9.

Questions for Steve include: 

• Why does your team believe it's no longer possible to hire your way to success?
• You're presenting at the Agility Reimagined Summit on March 9. Your session is called Adopting a Skills-Based Approach. How to transform your HR function to meet the future needs of business. In your session, you will cover 3 main topics. Talk to us about each:
  • The business imperative behind a skills-based approach
  • The challenges of moving to a skills-based approach
  • How to start and scale your skills journey effectively
• A skill-based view comes with additional complexity. Why do you think many companies have struggled to get started?

We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:02

Welcome to the HR Chat Show, one of the world's most downloaded and shared podcasts designed for HR pros, talent execs, tech enthusiasts, and business leaders, four hundreds more episodes, and what's new in the world of work. Subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hr gazette.com.

Speaker 2 0:26

Business is transforming at a faster pace than ever. It is no longer possible. Says today's guest, to hire your way to success or rely on the LinkedIn structures of roles and traditional career paths. To ensure your people and their capabilities evolve in support of your business needs. You must look deeper and understand people at the level of their skill. My guest today is Steve Holder, vice President Solution Advisory over at vizier Inc. And speaker at the Agility Reimagined Summit, happening very, very soon on March 9th in beautiful downtown Toronto. Hey, Steve, welcome to the show today.

Speaker 3 1:07

Good morning. Thanks. Happy to be here.

Speaker 2 1:10

So, Steve, beyond my short introduction there, why don't you take a couple of minutes and introduce yourself to our audience and tell them a little bit about the mission of Vizier .

Speaker 3 1:20

Yeah , um, well, thanks, and, and I, I think I'll start with myself. So just a little bit about me. I, I obviously re I reside in Toronto, which is an extra added bonus, and I'm looking forward to getting to the agility , uh, reimagined summit. And , uh, my background is I've been working in the analytics and data space for virtually all of my career for a variety of , uh, vendors and, and in my capacity as solution advisory , uh, leader here at vizier, I get to help our customers and, you know, our , our prospects understand the power that people analytics can bring to their business. And my team and, and myself , um, really work to map the vizier solution capabilities to , um, to our customer's needs and, and make them successful with the technology. So I'm a technologist at heart and , uh, you know, the , the , the people analytics space is one that's been really exciting to me, which leads to sort of the second half of your question, which is the mission of Vizier . And so if you're not familiar with Vizier, we've been in existence for about 12 or 13 years. Um, and we've always had a couple of core missions. One is we wanna change the way people consume data and analytics. You know, the , we can get into this, but I think one of the classic examples is, is there's so much data analytics people have available to them, and everybody struggles to get information and, and insight out of the data. So our, our , one of our core missions is to really change the way organizations interact with data and individuals interact with data and really bring , uh, the insight and the answer to the surface. And we do that for people and people data. Now, obviously our platform does a lot more, but our, our core mission was to really show how people impact the business and how the in the business impacts the people. And, and that two-way street is one of the core pieces of our, of our mission, and it's to really unlock the potential that organizations have in their people and vice versa. So kind of a , a lot to unpack there, bill, but I think we're really here to help organizations bridge the divide between all the data they have about their people and the in business impact that those people have.

Speaker 2 3:26

Okay , thank you very much, Steve. So Steve, shortly we're gonna get into , uh, some topics, some questions around your session at the Agility Reimagined Summit. Before we get there, though, big question for you . Um , um, uh, so big blue sky answer maybe is needed in a couple of minutes, but wh why does your team believe that it's no longer possible to hire one's way to success?

Speaker 3 3:48

Yeah, you know, I, I, I think there's a, there's a bunch of reasons for that. Um, and, and if you go back to pre pandemic, I know everybody , uh, you know, constantly refers to the pandemic as changing the way things are done, but I I truly believe that , um, the relationship between employees and employers changed principally because of the pandemic also about some, you know, social political issues that are happening in the world and just the overall state of, of, of things in , in business and , and with employees. But, you know, in the past, you, you had, you could hire, you could, you could, you know, you could be critical of , um, the talent pool you have and , and , and really cherry pick the top talent. And, and I think, again, that relationship has, has changed , um, in , in terms of what employees expect from their employer. And again, whether that's generational or social political, there's, there's a number of things that we have to look at as, as businesses and as business leaders in terms of how we treat our people, how we measure their effectiveness and, and, and make them successful, how we manage their careers. Um, and, and it's no longer just okay to try to, you know, I'll , I'll say, I'll use the word turn and burn through, through people, right? I, I think we've gotta be a lot more mindful of that. And, and I think it's, again, it's, it's the fact that employees have choice. Now with , with remote work, we, we see that our, our talent pools have expanded. So we, we might be recruiting in areas that are very different than what we have in the past. And if anybody lived through the great resignation wave of the last, say, 18 months before , uh, some of the inflationary pressures kicked in, we saw that, you know, there was just massive demand for talent. And, and I think you can't just continue to throw money at the talent problem. You've gotta have a more balanced approach. You've gotta treat your people with, with respect and with, you know, with, with great opportunity. And you need to ensure that overall you are an employer of choice, and that you've got the right framework to pick the right people from the pool you have available to you, and then ensure you keep those people and , and , and grow them .

Speaker 1 5:56

Thanks for tuning in to the HR Chat podcast. If you're enjoying this episode, we'd really appreciate it if you could subscribe and leave a five star review on your podcast platform of choice. And now back to the conversation.

Speaker 2 6:14

Okay, thank you very much. Let's now get into the details of the session that you're gonna be presenting at the Agility Reimagined Summit, Steve. Uh , so it's happening March 9th in beautiful downtown Toronto. It's , uh, it's on , uh, queen Street West or just off it , it's John Street , uh, lovely part of town. And your session is called Adopting a Skills-Based Approach, how to Transform Your HR function to meet the Future Needs of Business. In your session, Steve, you will cover three main topics, I understand. Um, I'd like for you now to walk me through each of those, spend a couple of minutes on each if you'd like. Uh, the first of those is the business imperative behind a skills-based approach.

Speaker 3 6:54

Yeah. So, you know, I, I kind of alluded to it in my, my last answer, but I think businesses have transformed some of the things that we see , um, in terms of what worked in the past and, and , and the way businesses existed has changed. One of the stats I'll share with the, the , the audience on the ninth is the average lifespan of an organization on the s and p 500. Um, you know, that that number has dropped by a decade in the last, you know, 30 years, which means that organizations used to exist for 30 years. Now that's down to 20. And that's because of evolution, pace of change, innovation, you know , um, global expansion and , and new players entering markets from places we, we historically didn't see. So I , I think when you, when you think about that, you , you've gotta , that impacts your business, right? And, and I'll share some examples of this on the ninth, but you know, organizations are looking at their talent management and looking at their talent pool very differently. You know, the , there's a stat from, from one of our partners, degreed , which says 46 , uh, percent of employees fear their current skills will be irrelevant next year. Now, that's pretty , um, interesting to think about that you've got people in your organization right now who are worried whether their skills will be relevant in 12 to 18 months time . Um, that's just crazy for me to think about. So when, when you start thinking about skills and, and you start thinking about jobs, the, the legacy way of, of managing your, your workforce or, or , or planning your workforce was say, I had a job, I had a headcount, and you, we had jobs based organizations. And I think that kind of contract or that approach has changed. We, we can't just think about jobs, we've gotta think about the skills that the job needs because we might be able to optimize for skills. We might have people who are untapped or , uh, have skills we don't know about . And if they are in the wrong job, that's information wouldn't be surfaced. And so I think as you, you know, going back to your question of saying how has the , um, imperative changed, organizations need to start thinking about their skills, right? Whether it be from an internal mobility perspective, whether it be hiring and new geographies, we've gotta start to break down jobs into the requisite skills because , you know, candidly, you might be leaving things on the table, right? Like, you might have a , a fantastic internal candidate who just isn't in the right job . So you're, that's not being surfaced as part of their career path by introducing a skills methodology, this will allow you to tap that potential within your own organization and within the broader talent pool you might be recruiting from. So, I , I think, bill , there's a couple of different ways we can look at this, right? The businesses have to transform faster than ever before because just that's the way the world works. We've got ongoing competitors that are constantly trying to change the way, you know, markets operate, and organizations need to really get the best outta their people. And, you know, we believe in the , and , and other people other than myself are saying that getting to a skills-based approach is a key way of ensuring you've got the, the best talent on the field to address your business needs.

Speaker 2 10:13

Okay, rock and roll. I'm , I'm excited for this session, Steve. Um, okay, so now maybe you can talk to me a little about , about another one of the, the topics that you'll be covering, which is the challenges of moving to a skills-based approach. And as part of that, maybe also talk about how, how folks can start and scale their skills journey in an effective way from, you know, from the experiences that you have working over at vizier.

Speaker 3 10:37

Yeah. Well, you know, and , and again, this , this skills topic isn't new, right? Many organizations have been working on skills, but I'll share a personal , uh, experience on, on how other organizations track skills or, or some of my experiences as an employee tracking skills, right? I would get an email once a year, I would go into a system, I would get a list of 400 skills. I'd have to, you know, designate my proficiency in that skill. Um, and it was really a once in a lifetime sort of event. And, you know, I don't know whether people looked at it in the past or not. Now that's going back ways , bill, but you know, there's this ongoing challenge of, of how do you assess the skills an individual have, whether that be by job or by person. And, and one of the challenges organizations face is the nu based on the number of , um, employees you have, we can see coverage. Um, I'll present some of these stats on the ninth too, but you know, we see that many organizations in the, you know, 500 to a thousand employee range actually have hundreds of occupa or around a hundred occupations, which means they , they basically have jobs, one in five people have a different job, right? And, and as you go up in the organization that doesn't, that that coverage doesn't get any better, which means that the number of unique job titles that people have, or occupation titles that people have in an organization, it, it can, it can sometimes be close to one to one , which is, makes it really difficult to assess that candidate or that individual and their requisite skills. And then if you take it to the next layer, which is the skill associated with job, you can have, you know, dozens or, or even, you know, close to hundred , um, individual skills for any given job. So it's, it's a really a , a matter of, there's just so many combinations and permutations of moving to a skills-based approach that you've gotta start to get yourself organized. And, and I think the , the other thing that we've heard from our customers is that they, they don't really have a verifiable source of information and, and a trusted source of information for either job standardization or job titles or skills. And you get into, as I've kind of alluded to some of the organizational complexity that comes from just the, the , the uniqueness of individuals and the way we, what we call what we do. Um, it , it just creates this really interesting problem that you have to solve for, because it's almost like every single person in every single job is unique. And then you can't really come up with a skills matrix that says, oh, I know that, you know, Steve Holder is a solution consultant, or a pre-sales advisor, or a solution advisory consultant, whatever title I have, those are all the same thing, and the skills I need are the same. So organizations struggle to standardize and, and kind of implement a skills-based approach because the data's a kind of a , a little overwhelming at times. And I think some of our legacy mindsets around headcount being the, the , the thing we track , um, kind of holds us back from getting to a skills-based approach. And so I guess I'll get into the next part, which is, what do you do, right? Like, I , I think there's a lot of hype out there right now in the skills-based HR journey. And, and candidly, it's not magic, you know, I, I work for a vendor. We have some amazing technology that , um, solves some of these challenges, but it , it's, you , you , you've gotta have a, a vision and you've gotta have an approach. And so it gets to the second half of your question bill, which is saying, how do we start to lay the groundwork for a skills-based HR journey? And, and we have a , a , a , a kind of a , a roadmap that we've built , um, in terms of where we think organizations should go. And I'll be sharing this on the ninth, but it's really about starting small and, and starting to understand the basics. You know, standardizing and reconciling your job names and job taxonomy , um, under, and , and , and don't let the complexity hold you back. Like, I , you know, I think there's, there's a lot you can be overwhelmed by when you start talking about , uh, whether it be with skills-based HR or, or even the data you have about your people as a people analytics person, that's really where I start my journey. Um, but don't be, don't let , don't let the complexity overwhelm me because there are ways to rationalize that. So we, we call that skills insight. So start small, get some insight into where your skills are and, and, and where you are, are on your skills journey and, and what data you have and don't have about your people. And then begin to use that to make plans so you can move to a skills-based planning paradigm and then, you know, continue to evolve that and use that as a skills matching , um, opportunity. Starting looking at how do you match individuals within your organization to jobs that you have available and candidates to jobs you have available, and the skills that those candidates have. So starting to reconcile that job based approach to being skills based and, you know, down the road and , and , you know, some other people talk about this concept of a skills marketplace and, you know, verifying skills automat automatically and things. And we, you know, I think, and we think those are more longer term objectives where we can actually start to build out that skills-based journey. So kind of a long-winded answer there, bill, but I think start small, get some basics in , in your skills ontology and , and get that sorted, and then grow over time and , and don't expect miracles to happen. I think there's a lot of hype around AI and technology right now, and, and those technologies help. We've got some fantastic things that, that make that better. But , um, it, it does take some, some work to think about what you wanna do and how to get there.

Speaker 2 16:01

Excellent. Thank you, Steve. We are coming towards the end of this particular conversation already. Uh, Steve, for those people who will not be lucky enough to be in the room , uh, on March 9th, how, how can those folks connect with you? Maybe that's through email, LinkedIn, who knows, and also of course, how can they learn more about vizier?

Speaker 3 16:19

Yeah, for sure. You know, obviously I'm on LinkedIn and, and people can feel free to hit me up. Um, you know, I , uh, my, my information, I'm sure we'll be in the podcast. Um, we also have our website, which has got some fantastic information about , uh, not only our skills based , uh, opp uh, technology, but also just the overall Vizier offering. Um, and, and it's quite great because , you know, one of the things I love about working at vizier Bill is that the customers we have tell our story better than we do. And you'll, you'll be able to check that out on a website and see some of these amazing outcomes that our customers get. And, you know, as a, as a software person my whole career, it's just amazing when I get to represent a product like vizier and the customers actually get the impact and we are able to really move the needle on their talent , uh, approach, their HR approach and, and helping organizations become more analytical and mature around their people. So , um, you know, you can check out www.vizier.com, lots of great information there to learn more or, or reach out. I'd be happy to have a dialogue with anybody anytime , or connect you with some people who can. So that's, that's how , uh, you can learn more and that's what I think is super cool. But we're gonna visit .

Speaker 2 17:30

Okay, wonderful. I should just add listeners before we do wrap up for today , uh, extra kudos goes to Steve here because , uh, Steve and I were chatting only yesterday and only yesterday did we decide to , uh, record a conversation together ahead of the event. So , um, it's been a very fast turnaround. And you know what, listeners, we did that, that in one take, so I'm pretty impressed by this guy. Hey, Steve, I'm looking forward to meeting you in person on March 9th, but for now, thank you very much for being my guest. Thank you. Have a great day. And listeners as always, until next time, happy working.

Speaker 1 18:07

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette? And remember, for what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hr gazette.com.