Simply Skills Bite: ‘Winning Skills’ and where to find them
The most successful companies in every industry have placed bets on the ‘winning skills’ they believe they need to out-perform their peers, now and on an ongoing basis.
How do they know which skills to bet on? Do they have a crystal ball? Are they doing something you’re not? We answer these questions and show you how to find your ‘winning skills’: the key to your competitive success.
In a typical year, HR and business leaders in the average corporation will follow an established cycle to set strategy, confirm financial targets and cascade this information across the business for action.
At some point in the process, there is a match or misalignment between the skills you need to achieve these goals and the skills you have access to across your workforce. So actions are taken to fill the gaps, and the results are … whatever they turn out to be.
But no one needs to point out that this is not a typical year. The ‘double disruption1’ of the pandemic and aggressive technology adoption have caused a global skills crisis. The ‘great resignation2’ is sweeping across the world. This is a survival battle. There will be winners but many more losers.
Why selecting and investing in specific skills is a strategic imperative
Half of all employees around the world need to upskill or reskill by 2050, according to research from the World Economic Forum (WEF)3. It also found that the coronavirus outbreak triggered companies to aggressively step up their upskilling and reskilling efforts.
The most forward-thinking businesses are also taking a step back to ask: What skills do we REALLY need to be most successful next year, and the year after that?
These businesses are identifying and investing in their ‘winning skills’ – the skills that help them:
Stand out from the crowd
Differentiate from competitors
Win their customers hearts
Maximise their market share
The precise choice of ‘winning skills’ varies from one industry to another by market maturity and several other dimensions.
But the process of finding and exploiting the skills that matter most to your business can be common across sectors, functions and disciplines. It is a process you can apply.
Strategists and marketeers obsess about differentiation; salespeople focus on USPs; customers make choices based on differences, not similarities. While your employees need and want skills with longevity that will keep them relevant and employable in the years ahead.
So your choice of the skills to invest in is fundamental: to execution of strategy, to sales and customer experience, to your employees today and your ability to attract and retain the workforce of tomorrow.
The ‘winners’ are not following the crowd
What does all this tell us about winning companies and winning skills? Many things.
First, identifying and securing your company’s winning skills is not about following the crowd or securing the most common or popular skills.
You’ll likely need - and may already have - most of the industry standard, popular ‘core’ skills to run your business. (If you don’t, fix this hole in your vessel as you re-chart your course ahead)
Many companies standing out for their success are identifying and securing differentiating skills – less popular but more impactful or just plain different – from their peer group. (Trust us, it’s in the data).
Simply can provide you with:
Data on who is hiring for which skills.
Insight on emerging and declining roles and skills.
Projections on which skills are most likely to grow, decrease or become automated in the future.
Tools to explore what your competitors are doing, how this compares with your company strategy and what approach might help you win the battle for skills.
Get in touch and we’ll show you how.
How to identify your winning skills
Here are the steps needed to pinpoint your specific winning skills:
Monitor the market - Pick up valuable signals and snippets of competitor intelligence from industry websites, professional journals and news media. And/or use a market insight provider (like Simply) to cut straight to the information you need the most: what’s going on out there, what the implications are for you.
Benchmark ‘three ways’ - Simply can consistently find value in comparing your organisation with:
(i) Established competitors – so you know how you’re behaving in relation to your peer group
(ii) Disruptors and innovators in your market – so you can pinpoint behaviours that may be different (or better) than you and your peer group
(iii) Leaders in the fields you want to excel in – e.g. if you want to be great at customer experience, learn from the greatest at customer experience regardless of their industry.
Translate your business strategy into its underlying capabilities and skills - This sets your corporate direction for ‘what matters most’ to your organisation. Learn more.
Evaluate ‘the long tail’ - Skills market insight tells you which skills are most common across companies, and provides a ‘long tail’ of other skills that are less common – any of which could be your ‘winning skills’. You need to cluster these by theme/capability and rank them by relevance/importance. You’re about to make your bet!
Emulate or differentiate - equipped with the knowledge of what’s going on in the market, what your competitors are up to and what’s needed for your company strategy, you now have a choice: learn from the best and copy them to get ahead, or plot a different path to differentiate and out-compete. Only you and your leadership team can be the judge.
Why bother and why now?
Every HR and business leader has a responsibility to ensure their workforce has fit-for-purpose skills, not just today but for the years ahead. This year there is a greater imperative and urgency than ever to achieve this. It’s as simple as that.
If you want to learn more about winning skills, dive into our latest free report, The Winning Skills Advantage.
Get ahead of the crowd
Simply Navigate was built to serve you: the bold leaders taking a stand to get ahead of the skills crisis, determined to be counted among the winners of these somewhat crazy times.
Secure competitive success for your business.
Find your ‘winning skills’ today.
References:
1. CNBC, WEF says machines will create more jobs than they destroy but warns of pandemic ‘double-disruption’, 2020
2. Forbes, The Great Resignation: Why Employees Don't Want To Go Back To The Office, 2021
3. World Economic Forum, The Future of Jobs Report 2020, 2020
https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020
You’ll likely need - and may already have - most of the industry standard, popular ‘core’ skills to run your business. (If you don’t, fix this hole in your vessel as you re-chart your course ahead)
Many companies standing out for their success are identifying and securing differentiating skills – less popular but more impactful or just plain different – from their peer group. (Trust us, it’s in the data).
Simply can provide you with:
Data on who is hiring for which skills.
Insight on emerging and declining roles and skills.
Projections on which skills are most likely to grow, decrease or become automated in the future.
Tools to explore what your competitors are doing, how this compares with your company strategy and what approach might help you win the battle for skills.
Get in touch and we’ll show you how.