Épisode 3

Cia: Welcome to Employee Activation, the HR podcast that takes you into the minds of some of the world's brightest workforce strategists to find out how they make both their employees, and their organisations thrive.

Today, we're going to be talking about one of my favorite topics, which is skills mapping, the process through which organisations identify and capture the capabilities of people across their workforce. And for a few years now, organisations have been embracing a skills-based mindset for managing their workforce, including things like hiring, learning and development, and to allow for better mobility of talent across their teams and functions. But with AI at work on the rise, it's taken on a new significance.

Skills are playing an all-important role in identifying what people are currently capable of and understanding how AI augmentation or automation might shift role requirements. But in order to understand how AI will impact the workplace, you first need to understand the skills your people have. So, to help us unpack this excellent topic today is our guest, Kate Stewart, an HR leader who led the way with skills mapping the workforce of one of Australia's biggest employers, Telstra.

And at the time, the workforce was roughly 30,000 strong, and this was clearly no easy feat. And beyond that decade's been at Telstra, Kate has also led HR teams at global hotel group, IHG, NBN Co, and she's currently working with an AI industry leader, Seeing Machines. So welcome, Kate.

Kate: Thanks so much, Cia. Lovely to be here.

Cia: So good to have you. I'm really excited about getting stuck into skills mapping. But first, before we do that, I would like to hear a little bit about your career and what you've noticed about this shift towards AI at work that's been happening from an HR perspective.

Kate: Look, it's such a great topic and I think – my career has been predominantly technology organisations. I had a brief reprieve in international hotels, which I loved, but my whole career has been around technology, telecommunications.

I love the way tech people work and think. I love how there's a constant evolution of roles and skills and people are always learning. You know, you're working with really smart people doing amazing things. And it's always been a really great industry and focus area for my career. And I've had some amazing opportunities.

And then from a skills perspective, I think that I've been really privileged to work for some very large organisations, which I think that are ahead of the curve in a lot of work. You know, they have thousands of employees, they get to practice and ideate and try new things. And so, from a skills perspective, we are seeing and have seen for years now, quite a big change. And I think all companies are at really different phases of maturity around that.

I was part of an amazing team at Telstra that really was at the forefront of thinking about skills. Almost, I was thinking that, it's about eight years ago now, so it's quite a while ago, you know really at the forefront of thinking about who are our people? What do they do? What are the roles that they have? What are the skills that they bring, not just in their role but from across their whole career and how do we harness that?

And so, you know, my time at Telstra, you know, I got to be at the forefront of a lot of that working very closely with a range of my peers on all things talent, learning, technology and skills. And that was just a hot house of ideas and innovation around that, which was fantastic. And it's been really great to see a lot of other industries and companies starting to think more about that since that time as well.

Cia: That's so great, Kate. And before we go any further, I have so many questions about that project because you were ahead of your time and it's just extraordinary. But for our international listeners, because we do have quite a few from all over the world, what's Telstra?

Kate: So, Telstra is a telecommunications organisation in Australia. We work, or they work, in the city, rural, regional and very, very remote locations all around Australia. So, it's quite a unique organisation when you think telecommunications, often it's at big cities or on a, you know, in a metro area. Telstra works right out in the middle of the Australian landscape and so there's some complexities there.

Telstra is a telecommunications organisation, but very much a technology organisation as well. And so, when I was there, it was making a really big shift to think about both of those things. How do we be a telco, but how do we really, really drive our software and technology as well? So, you know, big organisations going through massive changes.

And for Telstra, I think at the time, they really had to step back and think about who are we? What skills and roles do we need into the future? And then what sort of shift do we need to make from a workforce planning and strategy perspective? And I think that was some of the impetus about how do we how do we start to think about skills and where do we need to go in the future?

Cia: Yes, so let's delve into that because you mentioned a company like Telstra, you had a huge nationally dispersed workforce which covers everything from retail shops, technicians in the field, customer support. Skills mapping for such a broad range of roles is a big job. So, can you walk us through practically how your team approached that?

Kate: So, this is very much a shared activity. It is a bit, it was a really big organisation. I think that the challenge we had at the time was we had over 32,000 employees at the time, maybe about 34,000 globally. And while we knew what work they were doing and we had a sense of the roles they were doing, we really at a granular level could not understand what they did, how they did it, the types of skills that they had, how we might break apart those skills. And so, for us, you know, the left hand often didn't know what the right hand was doing.

And so, and I'll give an example. We hired, you know, thousands of young people to work in call centres, in the retail shops. Often many of them were doing tertiary study in technology, telecommunications, you know, they happened to be working in our retail shops, but actually they had the skills that we needed for the future.

But those two things weren't being correlated. And so, they'd finish uni, they'd leave their part time jobs, and they'd go and work for our competitors or they'd go and work for our partners. And at the same time, we're trying to recruit technology people into our company. And so, there was this real disconnect, which I think sometimes can happen in a big organisation, but I think also it happens in a small one as well.

You know, you hire someone to be a project manager, but you don't realise they've worked somewhere else and they've got agile skills and they've got technology skills. And so, we look at people based on the role that they do for us at that time. Whereas when you think about skills, you're trying to bring, you know, the toolkit of skills that they have from across their career. They actually can offer you a whole range of different experiences and skills and capabilities. And companies really have to harness that and in a different way than that they do today.

And I think when we were at Telstra, we had a couple of challenges. You know, who are our people and what do they do? There was a disconnect about internal mobility. We were trying to really understand how do we invest in learning, the right type of learning to help us as a workforce move forward?

We couldn't find the people we needed in the market with the skills that we had. And so, you know, Australia is obviously a huge employer for Telstra, but increasingly the types of skills that we needed, we needed them from all over the world. So how do, you know, so you're grappling with a whole range of different workforce challenges, and you're really starting to think about how do we buy skills in? How do we automate skills? How do we borrow skills through our partner, and then which are the skills that are crucial for us to have internally from an IP and a business continuity perspective as well?

Cia: Just hearing you talk through all of those different aspects really articulates what a monumental piece of work that was. And you know, I know today we have technologies like WithYouWithMe has a technology, but obviously you were doing this as an early adopter of the model. How long did something like that take?

Kate: Yeah, it was it's a good question. It took me a little bit to think back to it. So, in the end, we got down to about 480 roles for the global workforce. We built 140 skills and capabilities at different levels of proficiency, and that was applied across about 32,000 employees. So, we had a view of everyone in their role based on the skills. And then we had also built technology to enable people to go in and tell us about themselves. So, people brought their rich backgrounds and their careers and their life experience and also added it into the profile. So, we actually got a heap of extra data that we hadn't had before. And so that solved the employee piece in terms of they were able to start to connect their skills to opportunities across the organisation.

It helped them think about their talent, their development, their learning, and how they own their careers. But from a leader and an organisation perspective, it had huge benefits around the analytics that we were doing as well.

So, from go-to-whoa, from memory, about 12 to 18 months. But you have to remember, we built the capability model from scratch. So, you know, now that there are much quicker ways to do that. But at the time, there wasn't the technology platforms that there are today. And also at the capability model, there were bits and pieces, but for the breadth and depth of our workforce, there really wasn't anything in the market globally that we could find that solved it. And we wanted to write these capabilities in a way that made sense to our people. So, we worked with partners and a massive internal team to deliver that as well.

Cia: And am I right in recalling that you guys won a major award for this piece of work that you had to receive on your birthday?

Kate: Oh, yes, we did. We won the HR, the AHRI, so the Australian Human Resources Institute Award for Technology that year, which was massive. You know, we, there was ah there's two big tables there on the awards night, and the Technology Award was really about using technology as a way to embed change in organisations so you know they made it really clear it's not just a software rollout you know we have built the technology from scratch we built the learning from scratch and it had massive implications both at an employee, a leader and an organisational level so we were super proud and then yeah thrilled on the night to be up there.

And yes, it was my 40th birthday and I had this overwhelming fear that I'd get up there and somebody would realise and you know you'd have thousands of people singing happy birthday which luckily did not happen, but it was a it was a really lovely celebration and I do remember you know we had people who had fallen pregnant in that project and had the baby and then couldn't be there we had lots of people that had added sort of consulting advice around the side we had our REM team there, we had learning, we had talent we had a whole range of the HR and business community there. And I think it just was a great reflective moment where we thought some of these big initiatives just take so much buy in from so many people across the business to be successful.

And it was a really lovely recognition of such a big piece of work across Telstra.

Cia: It is a great point because a lot of the time you have HR initiatives that sort of firmly sit in the realm of HR. But when you look at workforce strategic planning and skills mapping and skills frameworks, the imperative across the entire organisation right up to the board and the CEO means that it really is a collaborative effort that everyone has buy in on, so I love to hear that everyone was there.

Kate: Yeah, it is. And look, I think it's a big, it's a really good call out too, I would say that the concept around skills is some people are really into it and other people and other organisations are not. And it's different to how we've done it before. You know, I think it is a mental shift that people have to make. I always think that, you know, when I look at learning and development, I think we do, you know, amazing. I've worked in lots of companies. You do amazing pieces of work around particular capabilities or you're trying to shift groups of people from, you know, one point to another.

Skills is in addition to that. And I think what's great about it is it helps people break it down into bite size pieces. So, you can ladder it up and make it a really big initiative. We can just get something really simple and focus on that.

So, you know a lot of the work that I've been involved in over the last sort of decade, we can see and data tells us that skills are shifting, and the skills landscape is shifting rapidly. You know I spoke at an event with RMIT and Deloitte probably about 18 months ago, and they were saying that, you know, digital skills are the fastest growing skills in job ads across Australia and four of the top 10 are digital skills. So, we can see how quickly that's happening. But as well as that digitisation, skills have also got a shelf life. And so, you know, employees sort of think...

You know, maybe I renew my skills, or I learn sort of every few years. You know, we know that leaders are saying to think, wow, my workforce really needs to be on top of this every six months. So, there's lots of great debate about where do organisations need their people to be versus where employees need to be.

And you're trying to balance that with life and work and family and caring. So, what I really like about a skills-led approach is often, you know, as an organisation, you can look at the big picture, but for employees, you can sit down and go, this year, we're going to focus on two things for you. Let's focus on this and this, and that's going to make you make this leap forward. And then next year, we'll look at something else. And so, it's, I think, achievable and manageable in sort of in everyone's crazy lives to be able to sort of break it down into bite-sized pieces, which is beneficial as well.

Cia: It's a fascinating perspective because I know in the conversations I have with our partners and customers; you do have those two very tangible benefits. One is at that organisational level. So how do you understand the skills that your workforce needs to be productive and competitive now and in the future? But you hit the nail on the head that you need it to resonate at that individual employee-manager level in terms of where are your skills now, where do they need to be and how can we put a plan in place to bridge those two gaps?

Kate: Yeah, I think I don't think these things are separate. And I think that conversations around skills and talent and development, it's, you get multifaceted approaches. And you know a lot of what we've seen is employees really own their own careers. You do. You have to make active choices about where you want to go or how you develop within a role. Like what are the things that you need to do from a breadth and a depth perspective to keep current? And I think that is just always on. You have to always think about that, what you're passionate about and where you want to grow.

I think for leaders, you know, across all of the organisations I've worked for, leaders are in it. You know, being a leader is hard work these days. You know, companies need to be smaller. They need to be thinking not just in the short term, but the medium term and the long term.

You know, you often can't recruit the skills that you need, so how do you grow them? So, you know leaders have got huge pressure on delivery and they need to be able to bring different people in to solve different challenges. You know I think the idea of having one team forever that's going to be able to take you through is probably changing as we go through. You need to be able to bring lots of different groups of people together to solve the challenges in front of you. And then that team disbands, and the next team comes together depending on what you need.

And then obviously at an organisational level, you know, that sort of at that 40,000-foot view, how do we think about right skills, at the right place, at the right time? But I think at an org level, when you’re thinking about your total workforce, you're also thinking about what are those skills and people that you need to keep in terms of your intellectual property, that it's critical for your competitiveness as a business, but where can you outsource or where can you automate and how do you make those changes? So, it's a complex world, but I think that when you take that skills lens, you can see the benefits across all of those layers.

Cia: Yeah, absolutely. And I know a lot of HR leaders are really interested in skills mapping. It's one of the most talked about points, you see at conferences. But I think a lot of people see it as shrouded in a bit of mystery, maybe a bit of a complex process, and they don't know where to start. So, do you have any advice for your industry peers wanting to get started on skills mapping?

Kate: Yeah, I admire that we went to a conference a little while ago and lots of people were like, we just don't know where to start. That was the general feel. I loved the time we at Telstra, it's just a massive piece of work, but I probably wouldn't do it again that way. I think organisations can do a few things. They can try either to look at the total landscape, you know, you can look at all of the skills that are sitting inside your JDs. You can use technology to help with that.

You know, there's lots of great stuff. You can use ChatGPT and Copilot to help you look at core skills at different levels. You might want to focus on the four things that you need your organisation to be better at within the next 12 months, you know. So, I think sometimes organisations go a big approach, sometimes they go a little.

But I do think that that conversation about prioritisation is important. I would say just start. If you wait for everything to be perfect, the skills landscape's already shifted and changed. So, you know there's a little bit about just starting. I think that, yeah, have a good look at what some other companies are doing. I would talk to your peers, your competitors. I think there is some great research out there that that can sort of get you in the right decision about how to go forward.

Cia: I love that, Kate. And I particularly love the idea that you can't let perfection be the enemy of progress. And it's just good to get started because this skills-based era is upon us. And to keep pace with things like AI and digital transformation, you've got to be taking that skills-based view, so...

Kate: Yeah. And look, I think, you know, at NBN, we had some excellent work that was in place, but it wasn't a connected skills catalogue sort of across the organisation. So, it was faster there in that we picked up what was already in place. And some parts of the business had done some great work. We bought off-the-shelf some capabilities that had already been written. And the standard capabilities when you think about professional accounting, marketing, HR, you don't need to write those things. There's a lot of great content out there already.

And then for any of the gaps that we had, we worked with Copilot to help create it. And we used a great draft, and then we took it to SMEs to validate and to refine. So that was a much quicker approach. And what we did there was we built a common baseline across the organisation which then informed how we thought about learning.

It thought about how we really approached some bite-sized learning interventions around skills. And we tried a whole range of different things. But that common baseline, I think, is a really great starting point. And it lets organisations then start to think about where they're going to focus and what's most important for them their particular, you know, on their particular journey.

Cia: That's great advice, Kate. Now, the final question is something that we always like to close off with our guests, which is exploring how you like to activate your people to help them realise their potential and align their aspirations with an organisational goal. What's one of your top tips or tricks as an HR leader?

Kate: I've looked after learning teams. I've looked after talent teams, development teams. It's a bit like being the builder that doesn't fix your own house. And so, you know, often when I sit down with either a new team like I've got now or an established team. It's really important that we're having conversations around their own development. We talk about work, we talk about priorities, but actually development and their own focus on that is super critical.

What's short term? How do I help them do that? Who needs to mentor them to help them learn those skills and to practice those skills? What's the midterm one? How do we think about that? You know, where do they want to be in 12 months? You know, what are the steps they have to take?

And I think we all know development and those sorts of conversations are important, but actually a lot of people don't proactively own it themselves. And so, by having those conversations with my team, it really starts to drive the conversation then around what are you doing to always develop? How are you building a curiosity? How do you grow? How do you network? What's next? How do you try new things? And I think if you can create that environment where people are open to progress and not perfection, I think people are amazing and they do amazing things.

Cia: Agreed. Thank you so much, Kate. This has been a really great conversation. And I think it's one that's going to get a lot of people excited about skills mapping and how it can really help them prepare their organisation for the future of work and understanding how everyone in their team can have skills that can contribute to that. So, thank you.

And for our listeners, if you do want to learn more about skills mapping, preparing for AI, or anything else we've discussed today, head to our website, which is withyouwithme.com, and go to the Employee Activation podcast page to explore lots of free resources, including our complete guide to building an AI-ready workforce. Thank you again, Kate, and we'll see you all next time.