Yet the intention was laudable. Identifying skills gives employees visibility over their development, aligns training catalogs with real needs, encourages project staffing, succession plans, mobility, guides recruitment profiles…

In short: the idea was appealing, but it was expensive and didn’t pay off. Let’s spare a thought for all those useless Excel files that left us too soon…

And it was also in the mid-2010s that a number of visionary entrepreneurs set out with the idea of dusting off competency mapping (e.g. 365 Talents). We’ll come back to this in a future publication, but their promise was precisely to facilitate the work of mapping and maintenance, while associating a variety of use cases (the best-known being the Talent Market Place).

Why talk about Skills-Based Organization (SBO)?

So why this revival of the skills-based approach, and what are we talking about?
Ideally, in a skills-based organization, the notion of skill or competence is not an afterthought in the service of the organization and the hierarchy, but on the contrary the heart of the organization.

By focusing on the tasks and activities to be carried out (and not the objectives, by the way), it enables greater fluidity, since, in theory, anyone can “do the job”, provided they have the right skills. Provided, of course, that we can identify who can do what, this often results in flatter hierarchies and more agile working methods.

It also deconstructs preconceived ideas about who can do what, regardless of age, gender or degree. In so doing, you broaden your talent base, which is particularly useful in times of shortage.

So it’s all very well, thanks to SBO. At least in theory.

Keeping the essence of the jobs.

There is, of course, a flip side to this. In the pure and perfect vision of SBO, “skills are the new currency”. This makes a mockery of the concept of job or profession, since I am no longer defined by what I am (my title, my label, my trade) but by what I do (or rather what I know how to do thanks to my skills). So you can become a “slasher”, a corporate handyman/woman, a Michel Morin as they say in the South-West.

While this vision is well suited to certain highly versatile, often highly educated and well-credentialed profiles, in reality it can be very confusing for the majority of workers.

1. Structural organization. First and foremost, there is a structural need to retain the notion of role. Obviously, a role is not a job. Except that jobs are often diverted to follow precisely… roles. To draw a sporting analogy, there are “positions” in rugby that can be occupied by several so-called all-rounders. It’s not uncommon for full-backs to be able to play as 10s, or for 2nd liners to be able to move up to 3rd row when the game or team situation calls for it. But you rarely see a 130kg prop who can push a Twingo in a scrum play on the wing, a position where you need to be able to run 100m in 11s. Because they simply don’t have the same assortment of physical “skills”, which have been developed in conjunction with their jobs.

2. Identity. For some, the job is confining. But for others, it’s a source of identity. Depending on how much you value your job, or how confident you are about “starting afresh”, getting rid of your job or title can be experienced as a downgrading and be particularly anxiety-provoking. We’ve seen this a lot with the introduction of matrix organizations, where certain positions were emptied of their substance, for example with a management role that wasn’t one.

3. Progression. Career paths are often structured and characterized by a succession of familiar roles. We know that to become a CFO, you first have to be a Controller or Finance Business Partner, then take responsibility for a small country or area, before moving up to a larger one, then back to Corporate to finally occupy the coveted position. This is a familiar and therefore reassuring trajectory, and one that provides guidance for anyone wishing to follow it. Eliminating jobs means potentially eliminating Career Paths.

Reinforcing the link between skills and jobs.

So does becoming an SBO suck? Again, let’s not rush to burn what we once loved (I may be exaggerating a little). Let’s look at it another way.

• Skills are ingredients.
• The job is the recipe.
• And job families are characterized by their proximity in terms of skills.

Put another way, in the cake family, it’s obvious that you’ll find flour almost every time, whether you’re talking about cheesecake or black forest.

The skills expected for a given job evolve, and characterize it differently. What’s more, the same job can mean completely different things from one business unit to another. At Renault, for example, it’s not certain that an engine engineer working on the Zoe needs the same skills as one working on the Kadjar.

So becoming an SBO doesn’t mean abolishing the notion of job, but rather blending it harmoniously with that of profession, while providing a forward-looking and dynamic vision. Of course, this is no easy task, and requires a real organization to be put in place. And just as there are succession plan rituals, org reviews and talent review rituals, there could be a jobs and skills review. Which is perhaps a sexier name for Strategic Workforce Planning!