“HR should be leading the change and could be the biggest advocates for AI implementation within organisations.”
Putting skills at the heart of your People stategy was the topic of conversation for our latest VIP roundtable event. Bringing together a select group of People leaders, we partnered with Beamery, the leading AI talent platform, to discuss the prevalent role of skills across a future-thinking organisation.
Hosted by James Ballard (Co-Founder at Annapurna) and Magnus Okuonghae (Senior Manager at Annapurna), the conversation was brought to life with expertise from Nate West (Account Director at Beamery) and Chris Illingworth (Director, Solutions Principal at Beamery).
The conversation spanned an array of topics across the spectrum of AI and its role both in developing employees across an organisation, but also in developing the People function itself. This brought about the following key takeaways:
Clarity on Skills Starts with Clarity on Tasks
The journey to becoming ‘skills-first’ is undoubtedly a continuous process, not an instantaneous transformation. While it might seem daunting, the discussion opened on how achieving tangible results within the first year is entirely possible.
Organisations must begin by identifying the high-level tasks required to deliver their business strategy, particularly in dynamic or expanding environments. This foundational understanding allows them to then meaningfully map the specific skills needed within roles. However, an excessive proliferation of skills frameworks can obscure rather than illuminate. A sharper focus on desired outcomes and the tasks that contribute to them, rather than exhaustive skill inventories, more effectively links an organisation’s work needs to real-world performance.
It shouldn’t be about your university degree; for example, it’s about proving what you can do with your university degree. The group discussed the role of executive positions, whereby in the hiring process, it is more commonly about your softer skills and your leadership skills than any particular capabilities. How do you lead through change management? What is your emotional intelligence like? How can we define these as capabilities for our talent?
Ultimately, we should be asking ourselves: What are the core problems or activities we need to solve or accomplish to assess the skills present within our organisation accurately? By focusing on these fundamental tasks, we can build a more practical and impactful skills framework.
Skills Development Must Be a Shared Accountability
Embedding a sustainable skills-first culture requires joint ownership between individuals and the organisation. The HR leaders stressed the importance of meaningful conversations, far more powerful than a dashboard or skills inventory alone.
Employees need clarity on why their skills matter and how those insights support career growth, mobility, and business agility. Simplicity and transparency were seen as key, particularly in smaller organisations, but also increasingly important for large enterprises to rediscover.
How do we help people grow their careers that are part of the skills strategy? What are the other skills that an individual needs to help them excel in a role?
AI has the potential to analyse data in a way that seemed a lifetime away. How can we start to see AI as a strategic tool in the way we run our organisation? What capabilities and skills are leaving the business in the next 5 years? Where do we need to build, buy and borrow talent? What is the business demanding that it needs to grow in the way it needs?
AI Has Potential—but Needs Purpose and Ownership
While AI and skills platforms can unlock productivity and insight, there is growing tension between automation and innovation. AI should be seen not just as a tool to optimise tasks, but as a strategic enabler that gives HR the bandwidth to engage more deeply with business leaders.
However, questions remain: Who owns the AI strategy within the organisation? How do we ensure it supports rather than erodes thoughtful talent planning? Engaging disciplines like futures thinking and systems thinking could be key to making AI a meaningful part of a skills-led people strategy.
With the rush to roll out AI across our organisations, how do you develop the art of the possible when it comes to AI? Can we look at our organisation and analyse whether it has really solved any problems yet?
The people who will succeed will be those who embrace the abilities of AI
Ultimately, there will be a fear towards AI due to the inherent way humans deal with change. From an HR point of view, we must manage this process effectively. If we aren’t thinking about it, then we are not progressive enough; if we are thinking about it too much and trying to change too much, employees will think we are trying to replace them.
An interesting discussion was initiated around the replacement of people with AI. Organisations are reducing the number of staff to create efficiencies and have AI/Technology to replace some of the tasks they were doing; however, this has had a knock-on effect on a reduction in ‘blue-sky thinking’ as people are being tasked to be more and more efficient.
Time is the biggest piece that AI can give us. We can get time back from being more productive through the use of AI, but as soon as we get that time back, we cost cut.
There is undoubtedly a role for AI to play in the modern organisation, yet sometimes we get blindsided by marketing, individual aims or even simple excitement. We must be looking at questions like, does AI help us predict what we need, or what impact can AI have on specific roles within our business?
Success in HR, simply put, is about hiring and retaining your best talent. If we can go back to basics, look at what we need in place to succeed and then build accordingly, the future is bright. The use of AI and utilising skills as a talent management piece are most definitely the future, but we must build the foundations to allow us to succeed.
