1. Skills-Based Hiring & Training: Key Benefits and Action Items for Employers

2. The benefits of skills-based hiring
Overview
Improve the quantity and quality of applicants
Focusing on skills, not college degrees allows an additional 70% of the US working population to apply (i.e., those without college degrees)
By distinguishing “required” versus just “preferred” skills, job postings highlight the critical skills needed on day one from trainable ones otherwise good fit candidates can quickly learn
Upgrade recruiting
Enhance the recruiting through hiring process
Skill-based hiring creates a need for HR and hiring managers to work together to identify and define the key competencies for each position, helping create a shared view of what’s desired
Skill-based hiring can drive consistency across the posting, recruiting, interviewing and hiring process by focusing on candidate skills assessment from end-to-end
Hiring talent based on key competencies and long-term potential builds a stronger talent base (e.g., get the best, trainable talent, not just people deployable on day one)
Upgrade the on-boarding process
Skills-based hiring identifies the skills a new hire may need to work on be productive
With this information, the on-boarding process can focus on the areas new staff needs the most work on
Improve Productivity
Enable better employee training
Defining the key skills needed for each role can help both new and current employees train for their current and future desired positions focused on well-defined, transparent skills
HR managers can use a skills-based approach to talent to be more strategic in developing talent
Reduce direct recruiting and on-boarding costs by accelerating the hiring process and providing a realistic job preview to reduce new employee turnover
Reduce overtime costs driven by current staff having to fill in for open positions
Reduce opportunity cost from limited production due to too many open positions
Reduce costs
Reduce Costs
Support the existing workforce
Reduce the stress and overtime among existing staff – which can lead to decreased productivity and burnout – by hiring good-fit talent more quickly to take open roles
Build a better company image
Give people a chance who may not have one and who may be underemployed or underutilized
Make jobs open to unconventional applicants (e.g., workers from outside the industry or without the typical profile) and attract capable candidates with different backgrounds who can bring in new ideas and approaches

3. Key action items to adopt skills-based practices
What
How
Who
Create a collaborative, cross-functional recruiting culture
Get agreement to adopt skills-based hiring practices from the top based on its ability to deliver bottom-line benefits to the company
Sell hiring managers and other key decision makers on the need to adopt skills-based hiring (why do it, how to do it, what to do)
Potentially build a cross-functional competency team to drive awareness internally and to drive progress forward internally
Human Resources
Senior management team 1 2
Re-format job postings and descriptions
Revise and refine job postings to implement skills-based best practices (e.g., focus on skills, distinguish required versus preferred, mark easily trainable skills as preferred even if needed, limit education requirements)
Use attractive language to present the company and “sell” the position
Format job postings so they can be easily ingested by job sites
Human resources
Hiring managers
Marketing department 3
Enhanced the recruiting through hiring process
Train hiring managers to asses on skills during the resume review and interview process supported by tools (e.g., worksheets that highlight the key skills and their assessment of a candidate’s capabilities)
Conduct behavioral interviews that focus on competencies and specific examples of competencies being used rather than applicant background
Human resources
Hiring mangers
COO
Operations department
Managers
Deploy a skills-based on-boarding process
Identify the key skills new hires need to develop during the on-boarding process based on insights gleaned from the recruiting and hiring process
Use a structured on-boarding process to provide targeted training on important skills the new hire lacks
Human Resources
Hiring Managers
Supervisors 4 5
Create and define clear career paths
Create and define clear career paths within the organization that specify how staff move between roles
Ensure career paths are conveyed clearly in job descriptions
Align development programs with key needed skills and allow staff to focus attention on skills needed for their next desired position
Human resources
Managers
Senior management team 6
Develop company talent
Invest in training programs and educational resources to further develop skills of employees and help them advance in career path
Human resources
Senior management team