{"id":61208,"date":"2020-05-20T16:54:28","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T16:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/explore.local\/2020\/05\/20\/building-a-skills-strategy-for-employees-and-shareholders\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T19:35:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T19:35:30","slug":"building-a-skills-strategy-for-employees-and-shareholders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/degreed.com\/experience\/blog\/building-a-skills-strategy-for-employees-and-shareholders\/","title":{"rendered":"Glad Employees, Happy Shareholders: A Skills Strategy Benefitting Both"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a 140-year-old company, Prudential is a financial services giant, constantly working to reinvent itself \u2014 especially now as advances in automation lead to business efficiencies. And yet Vice Chairman Robert Falzon, in a recent podcast interview<\/a> with Joe Fuller of Harvard Business School, described the company\u2019s commitment to cultivating the capabilities of its 50,000 employees as a strategy underpinned by skills<\/a> and internal mobility<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Talent<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Opportunity at Prudential<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

That strategy is supported by data, specifically from Prudential\u2019s survey of the American worker<\/a>. The survey asked who has responsibility for skills and skill development; respondents said themselves primarily, and then their employers and managers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s holding individuals back from developing their skills? Anxiety over the cost (e.g. traditional university education or expensive credentialing programs), followed by anxiety over what to study, and who can be a trusted partner. Or put more simply: what skills do I actually need and who can help get me there?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the same Prudential survey, 80% of respondents agreed that the deployment of technology helped companies grow and helped them to be more efficient. Survey respondents are not threatened by technology as a staggering 95% don\u2019t believe the majority of their jobs will be replaced by technology. However, due to these technological developments, 30% of respondents also don\u2019t believe they have the skills to do their job today, and that grows to 50% when looking forward a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"30%<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Skills Strategy Solution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Falzon says he wants to see Prudential \u201cdouble the size of our U.S. businesses with the existing investment that we’re making in talent today.\u201d That happens through efficiency and automation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to meet that need, Prudential is creating an inventory of skills. It starts with a visioning exercise to capture what the business or function will need to look like in the next three to five years. From there comes the hard work of identifying the skills \u2014 not resumes, not experience \u2014 needed to meet that vision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Falzon acknowledges that it\u2019s not an easy task and to support it, they have turned to technology. Using a large database paired with artificial intelligence (AI), they scan thousands of job descriptions and individuals\u2019 resumes to translate jobs into skills<\/a>. Individuals have the ability to edit the output, and as they do so, the machine learns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The magic really happens, though, as the job’s skill requirements start to match with their people\u2019s skills to present the opportunities for which they are most qualified. Falzon says, \u201cThere’s a whole list of jobs that they never would have thought of that they’re actually qualified for. Or jobs that with some incremental training, they could be qualified for based on the skill sets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s pretty powerful. You can create that power too, even if you don\u2019t have the ability to create the database and AI technology solution that Prudential uses. In fact, that\u2019s exactly where Degreed can help \u2014 it\u2019s our sweet spot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our process starts with mapping skills to roles<\/a>, which is a crucial capability of Degreed’s learning experience platform (LXP). It\u2019s a process that combines our technology and our teams to help create new skill strategies for customers. As we\u2019ve recently added the capabilities of Adepto<\/a> to Degreed, we\u2019re able to create the full cycle of skills, candidates, roles, and projects to enable a functioning structure of internal mobility and a data-driven approach to learning and upskilling<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Matching<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Achieving Success<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the technology at hand, Falzon shares three underlying keys to success for a skilling strategy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n