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Many companies today face a familiar skills and talent management challenge: Some divisions are overwhelmed, while others have excess capacity. The traditional response? Hire for the busy areas, potentially lay off from the quiet ones and hope the market stabilizes.
But forward-thinking organizations are discovering a more strategic approach—one that uses skills data to treat their workforce like players in a dynamic chess game.
“You can move [employees with needed skills] like on a chess board so that you maximize productivity, you maximize innovation, you maximize creativity—so that you can drive your business strategy forward,” says Kimberly Bowen, senior vice president of talent and inclusion at employee benefits provider Unum, describing her company’s approach to skills-based workforce management.
‘Heat map of skills’
Imagine having a real-time visualization of every capability across your organization. Not job titles, not departments, but actual competencies. Bowen describes this as “almost like a heat map of skills” that reveals hidden potential and unexpected connections across the business.
Kimberly Bowen, Unum
This approach proved its value when Unum needed to rapidly shift resources between business lines during the pandemic. Instead of seeing separate silos, leadership identified that claims processing capabilities were fundamentally similar, whether applied to
