Skills-Based Organization: The Keys to a Successful Transformation

During our annual event Akoya Tech You Up, we shared both a mapping of the best tools enabling large organizations to better leverage skills data, and the key practices used by the most advanced groups in implementing a Skills-Based Organization (SBO). With the ambition to move beyond theory, we invite you to discover the strategies that make a difference in achieving this transformation. 

Draw inspiration from technology without seeing it as an end goal

The market for tools using skills data is currently thriving and dynamic, segmented into several major families, each addressing specific needs:

• Talent Marketplaces to drive career paths
• Learning Experience Platforms to enhance the learner experience 
• Labor Market Intelligence platforms to better understand the job market 
• And of course, traditional HRIS to manage a variety of processes related to employee development. 

Faced with this diversity, the risk is to choose a tool for its real or perceived performance rather than its ability to support a clear vision. The most advanced companies in SBO transformation understand this: technology solutions inspire and accelerate, but they should not be the starting point. 

Build the foundation with concrete use cases and frameworks aligned to objectives 

A benchmark of more than fifty large companies provides a major insight: the success of an SBO approach lies in clarity of intent and preparation before any technological implementation. Leaders focus on two fundamental ingredients, necessary though not sufficient.

The first key is defining the vision and prioritizing use cases. Before evaluating any solution, leaders clearly define what they want to achieve. For whom? And for what benefits? Use cases must be concrete and deliver tangible value for both business and employees. Here are some common examples among our clients: 

• Improve the relevance of performance reviews to ensure consistency in career paths 
• Create truly personalized learning experiences to enhance training effectiveness 
• Inspire and streamline cross-functional mobility to optimize resource allocation and retain talent 

This approach requires sponsorship at the highest level, jointly driven by HR and business leaders within the executive committee. This alliance ensures that the SBO project does not remain an isolated HR initiative but becomes a true enterprise transformation project. 

The second key is the strategic design of skills frameworks. Far from being a simple taxonomy exercise, redesigning frameworks is the foundation of the company’s new common language and of a data architecture that will underpin the SBO. The challenge is not technical but cultural: ensuring adoption of this language across all teams. The winning methodology relies on: 

• Accelerating preparation through GenAI capabilities 
• Embedding skills in job architecture to ensure connection to processes 
• Systematically validating and enriching with internal subject-matter experts 

This last element ensures teams embrace this new common language and helps to identify key contributors for ongoing updates. 

Activate and drive adoption—otherwise, it’s all for nothing

If vision and frameworks form the foundation, what demonstrates scale-up? The answer lies in one word: activation. Across more than 150 projects led by Akoya to improve skills management, we have identified essential activation levers: 

1️⃣ Adapting processes and employee/manager experiences. A skills-based approach will not magically embed itself into HR processes and rituals. This means revisiting recruitment criteria, development review content, and training plan design. This deep transformation takes time, as it involves changing processes, habits, and established ways of working for both managers and employees

2️⃣Deploying suitable tools. Once the impact on experiences and processes is measured, a digital solution becomes essential for scaling. It is no longer an end in itself but the most effective way to support the defined strategy, offering a seamless user experience to thousands of employees and improving process efficiency

3️⃣Establishing clear and sustainable governance. To ensure SBO benefits endure, robust governance is indispensable. Who has the authority to enrich or arbitrate framework content? How to coordinate local initiatives with central strategy? Implementing clear processes and dedicated bodies is key to keeping the company’s skills capital up to date and relevant

Activating a Skills-Based Organization is both a cultural and operational transformation. Companies that succeed follow a proven plan: they anchor their approach in a business vision, make it tangible through concrete use cases, and ensure sustainability through dedicated governance and a focus on real-world results. By adopting this pragmatic approach, SBO becomes a powerful lever for competitiveness and a driver of lasting success. 

Assessing your own maturity on these dimensions is the first step on your transformation journey—let’s talk about it.