The shift to becoming a Skills-Based Organisation sounds straightforward: understand the skills you have, identify the capabilities you need, and use that insight to make better workforce decisions. In practice, getting there requires changes to how organisations think about jobs, workforce planning, learning, technology and, importantly, the role of Talent Acquisition.
For TA Teams, this creates an opportunity to move beyond replacing roles like-for-like and play a more active role in shaping the capabilities the organisation needs next. But what does that actually look like in practice?
We caught up with 3 Talent Leaders to explore how they are approaching the shift, from skills taxonomies and skills intelligence to internal mobility, AI-enabled hiring and cross-functional ownership, and where TA fits into the broader skills ecosystem.
Matt Broadley, Talent Solutions Manager, AGL
At AGL, we believe energy makes life better and are passionate about powering Australian life. AGL operates Australia’s largest private electricity generation portfolio within the National Electricity Market, comprising coal and gas-fired generation, renewable energy sources such as wind, hydro and batteries and other firming and storage technology. We are building on our history as one of Australia’s leading private investors in renewable energy to be a leader in the transition to a lower emissions and smart energy future in line with the goals of our Climate Transition Action Plan. We’ll continue to innovate in energy and other services to enhance the way Australians live, move and work.
For AGL, skills are the core of our business, they will allow us to have a workforce that is fit for the energy transition. A Skills Based Organisation means understanding skills that our people have, the skills they want, and the skills they need, and having the right frameworks, processes and tools in place to grow their careers.
We currently leverage Workday’s Skills Cloud, giving employees the power to showcase the skills that are important to their careers and growth.
We’re taking advantage of the organisation’s investment into Workday, activating the modules that will help our team members prioritise their careers, internal mobility, and skills acquisition. We’re also leveraging the Korn Ferry Talent Suite and are exploring how we can best use it within our people processes to create a consistent, people-centric experience.
Employees own their skills profile in Workday. As they take on new experiences or learning, Workday will suggest adding new skills into their profile. Our first goal has been to encourage the workforce to capture their skills and our next step will be endorsing those skills.
We are actively working on adapting hiring process to focus in on skills hiring. We are starting to embed SBO with our hiring leaders – without their full endorsement and understanding it will be challenging to have impact at scale. We are also prioritising the digital experience, with employees being encouraged to update their skills profile, capture skills that are relevant to their roles now, and the skills that will be relevant to their roles in the future. We have a multi-year roadmap, including areas such as changing hiring manager mindset, focusing on internal mobility searches, rethinking our position descriptions and evolving our interview processes to better showcase skills through case studies, presentations and practical business challenges.
Everyone in the organisation is involved in leading the change. We have quickly realised that for this to be successful and sustainable, the whole organisation needs to own it. P&C are of course championing the cause, and we have a community of practice with leads from each of our CoEs to make sure that skills aren’t just another thing that P&C “do” to the business but is a thread across all our employee lifecycle activity. P&C are lucky to have great relationships across the broader business to which will help embed this evolution.
Skills are about the person and what they can do, our initial priority has been capturing the skills in the “current state” of the organisation. Our multi-year roadmap does highlight the need to stay agile around our skills taxonomy as our industry is going through substantial transformation. With that will come new skills and capabilities that our organisation may have never heard of which will require us to make decisions on the build, buy, bot, borrow approach. But, it’s a cool problem to have for an organisation that is doing some interesting transformative things
Radhika Gawade, Head of TA, Kyndryl
For a technology services business like Kyndryl, skills are our product. Kyndryl’s ability to help customers modernise technology, adopt AI, accelerate transformation and remain competitive depends on having the right skills available at the right time. Moving to a skills based organisations, is not just a talent initiative—it’s a business imperative. Workforce readiness sits at the heart of Kyndryl’s Powering Human Progress transformation because delivering for customers requires continuously evolving the capabilities of our people.
Kyndryl has established a global skills and career framework with defined job families, career pathways and leadership behaviours providing visibility into workforce capabilities and future skill needs. AI is embedded within Workday and Kyndryl’s learning ecosystem, providing personalised recommendations for upskilling, certifications and development opportunities aligned to employees’ skills, interests and career aspirations.
Employees are encouraged and supported to proactively identify skills and pathways needed to move into emerging areas. Through HackerRank assessments, structured learning journeys Kyndryls can build capabilities in high-demand areas, including AI-focused roles such as Forward Deployed Engineers. Kyndryls have completed more than 50,000 certifications, demonstrating a strong culture of continuous learning and adaptability.
Technology is a critical enabler of Kyndryl’s skills-based approach. An AI-powered skills intelligence platform layered over Workday provides Workforce Solutions teams with deeper visibility into skills and adjacent capabilities across workforce. This improves deployment decisions, workforce utilisation and internal mobility while helping uncover talent that may otherwise be overlooked. Talent Acquisition is also introducing AI-enabled role intake discussions to identify transferable skills, and alternative talent pools, particularly in highly competitive and skill-short markets.
This is a collaborative effort involving People Technology, Learning, Talent Acquisition, Workforce Solutions and business leaders. From Flexible Fridays dedicated to development to GenAI learning pathways across functions, Kyndryl is building a workforce where capability—not job title—drives opportunity, growth and business success.
Tibo Torche, Group TA Manager, Boustead Geospatial
At Boustead Geospatial, we help organisations make better decisions through the power of location intelligence. As we continue to evolve our workforce strategy, we are also progressing toward becoming a Skills-Based Organisation (SBO), fundamentally changing how we think about talent, workforce planning and career development.
Rather than focusing solely on job titles, qualifications or tenure, we are placing greater emphasis on skills, capability and potential. While our journey continues, there are several practical steps that have helped accelerate progress.
- Establishing a Skills Taxonomy: We aligned many of our roles to the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), providing a consistent way to define professional skills and proficiency levels. We combine this with a broader view of capability, recognising that high performance is influenced by skills, behaviours, knowledge, experience and qualifications. Equally important is alignment to our values and employee value proposition, ensuring we attract individuals who demonstrate curiosity, integrity, excellence, progress and impact.
- Embedding Skills into Talent Acquisition: We redesigned elements of our recruitment process to better assess capability and future potential. This includes job design, advertising, screening, assessment and interviewing practices. We have also implemented a range of AI-powered talent intelligence and recruitment technologies integrated through Humanforce Talent, enabling stronger sourcing, assessment and decision-making while improving experiences for candidates and hiring managers.
- Improving Workforce Visibility: Our HRIS and learning platforms provide greater visibility of workforce capability and emerging skill gaps. This supports more informed workforce planning and helps employees identify career growth opportunities. Recently, this visibility enabled several employees to transition into new roles aligned to organisational priorities, despite not previously being recognised as likely successors.
- Creating a Cross-Functional Skills Ecosystem: Becoming a Skills-Based Organisation is a business transformation initiative, not simply an HR project. Our working group includes HR, Talent Acquisition, Learning & Development, business leaders and technology specialists who collectively maintain a dynamic view of workforce capability and future talent requirements.
- Hiring for Future Capability: Workforce planning is no longer about replacing like-for-like roles. Our Talent Acquisition team works closely with hiring managers to identify the capabilities required to execute future business strategy. While technical expertise remains important, we increasingly seek adaptability, learning agility, curiosity and growth potential. This allows us to build teams capable of responding to changing customer expectations, market demands and technological advancement.
Ultimately, workforce planning is not about predicting the future with certainty; it is about making informed decisions today that build the capabilities needed to deliver strategy, adapt to change and create long-term value.
Skills data enables leaders to make better decisions about hiring, development, succession planning and workforce deployment. Success will be measured through outcomes such as increased internal mobility, stronger succession pipelines, improved workforce readiness, reduced reliance on external hiring for critical capabilities and stronger alignment between organisational priorities and workforce capability.
Continue the conversation at ATC2026
The shift to skills-based organisations raises a bigger question for Talent Teams: if organisations are moving from jobs to skills, how does TA need to change with them?
At ATC2026 UPLIFT, we’ll explore what this means in practice, from skills-based hiring and internal mobility to workforce planning, AI and the expanding remit of Talent Acquisition.
Skills-Powered Organisations Session:
- Four Years into Skills-Based Transformation: What Arcadis Has Learned
By Hugh Ragg, Global Skills Program Director at Arcadis
