Quincy Valencia's Analyst Perspectives

The past five years have witnessed unprecedented innovation and investment in HCM technology. As quickly as the world of work has changed, so too have new technologies emerged to support those changes to optimize human engagement and business outcomes. Point solutions and platform providers alike have made headlines with advances in talent intelligence, personalization within the flow of work, pay equity analysis, skills gap identification and AI-powered career pathing, to name a few. But one thing that people often overlook is that all this new data and information still needs a central repository; a single source of truth for each worker that provides a complete picture of an individual from hire to exit, and that is found in an organization’s core HCM platform. These platforms have historically been focused on process and workflow automation and compliance, a digital replacement for the personnel folder in a file cabinet and the in-and-out box on the corner of a desk. But in order to support the influx of new data and information from adjacent systems, core HCM technology providers have been evolving as well. The result is a new breed of HCM platform, as accessible and valuable to employees and managers as they are to human resources teams, engineered with user experience as an equal priority to workflow automation and compliance.

Organizations are constantly striving for agility and efficiency to stay competitive. From a human-capital standpoint, a logical way to achieve this is by moving away from a job title and education-based workforce and transitioning to one that is skills-based. This approach emphasizes the skills and capabilities of individuals rather than their prior job titles or education, enabling organizations to tap into a broader talent pool and adapt to changing business needs. However, creating a skills-based workforce requires overcoming challenges such as defining and measuring skills, changing workforce architecture and gaining the buy-in of human resources and business leaders to an entirely new way of viewing talent. Organizational structures today are largely built around functions with jobs that have titles and tasks to be completed. Individuals are evaluated for these jobs based on education, prior job titles and, sometimes, references, all used as a means of verifying that what is listed on a resume is true. In a skills-based workforce, the value of a resume is voided, as prior job titles and degrees would no longer be the pillars of measurement for a candidate’s qualifications, which I have previously addressed in this analysis as well as offering guidance in this publication on five strategies that should be embraced. Skills, though, cannot be verified by phoning a university or verifying employment tenure and titles.