Skills-First Practices for Employers: Work Design & Redesign

You maintain visibility of the skills your employees have and how those skills are being used in the business.

Try this:

• Keep a skills inventory that maps all employees' current skills against their roles, and review it regualarly.

• Ask managers to confirm which functions and tasks within a role the employee's skills are being applied.

• Reference the Careers & Skills Passport to map your employees' skills.

You plan ahead for how new technology or business changes will reshape jobs.

Try this:

• Review sector Jobs Transformation Maps to understand how roles in your industry are expected to evolve over the next few years.

• Bring line managers together regularly to discuss which roles are changing because of technology or process shifts.

• Flag roles at affected early, so actions can be taken before disruption hits.

As part of your regular business planning, you check whether you have the skills you need to hit your targets and stay competitive — not just once, but as a standing item every planning cycle.

Try this:

• Add a 'skills check' as a standing item in your annual business planning cycle — not a one-off exercise.

• Compare the skills your strategy requires against the skills you currently have, and prioritise the biggest gaps.

• Link training budgets to the gaps identified in planning, rather than spending on generic programmes.

You prepare employees early for changes to their roles — for example, retraining of employees is planned as part of business transformation to enable employees to take on new roles.

Try this:

• Identify employees in roles likely to change and start conversations about future pathways at least 6–12 months ahead.

• Integrate skilling pathways into transformation plans to help affected employees transition into redesigned or emerging roles.

• Provide opportunities for employees to develop and apply new skills through stretch assignments, job rotations or job shadowing, preparing them for evolving job requirements and future roles. 

You match employees to projects and internal roles based on their skills, not just their job title — opening up opportunities for them.

Try this:

• Post internal opportunities with the skills required so employees can self-assess fit.

• Use skills data to surface internal candidates for projects and roles, not just tenure or current grade.

• Facilitate talent deployment across units of departments.

You leverage relevant national and industry tools, such as Skills Frameworks and Jobs Transformation Maps, where appropriate, rather than spending time and money building your own from scratch.

Try this:

• Check for publicly available resources before commissioning new tools. 

• Reference jobs-skills content from publicly available resources instead of starting from scratch. 

• Assign someone to locate, interpret and stay current on updated resources so the organisation can reference them quickly.

  
  

You distinguish general, transferable skills from knowledge unique to your organisation, and make sure critical know-how is documented and passed on — protecting the business against disruption when key people leave or retire.

Try this:

• Identify which knowledge is unique to your organisation versus transferable across sectors, and document the unique parts. 

• Create knowledge-sharing practices, such as walkthroughs, documentation, and mentoring pairs, for roles held by a single person.  

• Build handover plans into role transitions so know-how isn't lost when key people leave or retire.

You regularly check whether your organisation’s Skills-First practices are improving performance, retention or profitability.

Try this: 

• Decide on 2–3 outcome indicators, such as internal mobility, retention, time-to-fill, or training-to-application, and track them consistently.

• Review whether Skills-First practices are actually improving the outcomes.

• Share results with managers so they can see the value and adjust their approach.