A new chapter begins

Workforce strategy

Preparing for a Skills-Powered Future: Be Change Ready 

Before embarking on skills transformation in your organisation, start first by assessing change readiness so you can confidently plan and build the foundation for a skills-powered organisation to take flight. 

This is the second article in a series designed to help you build a skills-powered organisation. We’ll share practical insights that help create fulfilling career paths for your people and a sustainable talent strategy for your organisation.  

Skills have become a moving target. According to LinkedIn’s 2025 Work Change report, 70% of skills in most jobs are expected to change by 2030. As AI accelerates automation and re-defines roles, organisations are under pressure to identify critical skills and close skills gaps while staying agile in the face of constant change. 

In response, many Australian and global organisations are re-shaping their workforce and people practices through the lens of skills. This approach focuses less on jobs and titles, and more on identifying, developing and leveraging the specific skills that employees need to thrive, and organisations need to perform. Emphasising skills allows your organisation to create a targeted development program that aligns with both current and future business needs, ensuring your workforce is equipped to adapt to technological advancements and changing industry demands. In doing so, you start shifting away from often disruptive continuous organisational restructuring and build organisational resilience. 

Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trends has highlighted that many organisations are already strengthening their skills foundation (job architecture, skills taxonomies, etc.) to accelerate and scale their skills practices and are rewarding acquisition and application of critical skills.  Additionally, 80% of organisations are integrating a skills-based approach to career development compared to 66% in 2023 (Mercer’s 2024-2025 Skills Snapshot survey).

Our Global Talend Trends also shows that organisations that are advancing their journey to become skills powered are already experiencing the benefits.

Equipped with strong talent intelligence enabled by skills platforms, people can be matched to work based on their current skills and the skills they’re building for the future. It’s this dynamic marketplace that enables more autonomy, visibility and growth opportunities for employees to design their own rewarding careers.
Georgina Slade

Principal Mercer

We’re seeing that some organisations are already harnessing the power of AI-enabled skills platforms, such as talent marketplaces, to recruit for skills, match skill-based gigs to employees and recommend skill-based learning and connections. Unilever’s skills-powered talent deployment led to more than 700 projects being resourced in the first two months of the pandemic’s onset, with 60% of projects resourced cross-functionally and cross-geographically. A staggering 700,000 hours of work and contributed to a reported 41% boost in productivity. 

Building a skills culture: A journey, not a sprint

Cultivating a skills-first culture is a mindset and a way of working that requires commitment, and a deep understanding of the human element involved. While technology plays a crucial role in this transformation, the heart of becoming a skills-powered organisation lies in its people. Leaders can underestimate the sustained change effort necessary to realise the vision, by disproportionately focusing on technical solutions over the investment in cultural shifts that must accompany them.

According to Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trends, a staggering 67% of organisations are adopting new technology without fundamentally transforming their processes and the way they work. This underscores the importance of not just implementing new tools, but also fostering an environment where employees feel empowered to adapt and thrive.

Transformations take time, and organisations must lay a solid foundation to support this evolution. To facilitate this transition, conducting a skills-powered change readiness assessment is a critical part of the process.

Assess organisational readiness to reduce risk and increase benefit pay-off  

A change readiness assessment evaluates the foundational elements necessary for successful transformation. It examines your organisation or team's capability, capacity, commitment and cultural alignment, ensuring that you are actively preparing for this shift with the right mindset and ways of working. This assessment identifies the drivers of change and highlights actions needed to build a robust foundation for sustainable growth. Essentially, it sets the stage for transformation by ensuring your organisation is well prepared for the journey ahead.

There six key factors to assess; the outcomes of which, will then help you pinpoint what to prioritise for a successful transformation.

  1. Leader commitment
    Assess the likelihood that leaders will actively work to eliminate skill barriers within your organisation, such as changing traditional recruitment processes and hoarding talent rather than sharing it across teams. Leaders need to envision the skills needed for the future and remain flexible in sourcing that talent. Additionally, it’s crucial to evaluate the effort required to shift mindsets from viewing jobs as fixed roles to adopting a skills-based approach that fosters career growth and effective workforce planning. 
  2. Leader accountability
    What’s the capability and past behaviour of leaders towards driving change, and do your leaders require specific metrics and support to motivate and drive accountability? Consider what will be needed for your leaders to prioritise the skills agenda.  Explore opinions and attitudes as to whether skills are seen as essential for achieving your organisation’s strategic goals (or are they merely an add-on to existing plans) and invest in an approach to actively monitor outcomes.
  3. Manager capability
    Assess the current capability of managers to have career-based conversations with their team members and how easily managers will integrate a skills lens.  Your managers should confidently advocate and facilitate continuous learning and development opportunities for their teams. Their adaptability to move away from tried and tested career pathways to exploring lateral career paths through skill building is also essential.
  4. People function maturity
    What’s the maturity level of your people function and the likelihood that the team will invest in their own learning to enable this change?  This team will play a critical role to enable your business to adopt a skills-first mindset and make data-driven decisions, particularly in areas where there may be business resistance.
  5. Processes and systems current state
    Assess how effectively the current talent processes and resources are functioning. Documenting and understanding these processes will help to estimate the effort required to integrate skills particularly in recruitment and performance management.  
  6. Cultural norms

    Develop a clear plan to articulate the desired future state in terms of skills-powered mindsets and ways of working. Assessing the gap between the current and desired states will help determine the pace and investment required to reinforce and sustain the change.

    Regardless of how your organisation chooses to navigate the journey towards becoming skills powered, it’s essential that you gain an early understanding of change readiness. This proactive step will empower you to address the challenges head on and seize the opportunities that lie ahead, ensuring a smoother transition into a future where skills drive success.   

If your organisation has embarked on a skills-powered journey or you’re contemplating it, how prepared are you for the path ahead? We would love to hear from you.
Related products for purchase
Related Solutions
Related Insights
Related Case Studies
Curated

Download the report

This content has been prepared by Mercer Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd (MCAPL) ABN 55 153 168 140. MCAPL is a wholly-owner subsidiary of Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd ABN 32 005 315 917 (‘Mercer Australia’). References to Mercer shall be construed to include Mercer Australia and/or its associated companies.

This content is intended to inform clients of Mercer’s views on particular issues. It should not be relied upon or used as a substitute for professional advice specific to a client’s individual circumstances. Information contained in this document has been obtained from third-party sources. While the information is believed to be reliable, Mercer has not sought to verify it independently. Mercer makes no representation as to the accuracy of the information and takes no responsibility for any error, omission or inaccuracy in the information provided by any third party. ‘MERCER’ is a registered trademark of Mercer Australia.