Skills and transferability

- When we talk about reskilling or upskilling, we're really talking about an individual needing net new skills. You've got to go learn some new skills because the job in front of you is changing or you're moving into a new job. Skills transferability is really exciting and should be foundational to how you think about skills because it starts with the skills someone already has. Take sales and marketing, for example. You might be at an organization that is shrinking your marketing team, but needs to grow your sales team well, skills transferability means you would start by looking at your marketing team, seeing who's got the skills, who in that marketing org has been out there talking to customers, has been out there persuading customers about products that are coming to market. And seeing those skills is something that is most of what they'll need in a new sales role. So skills transferability really is what can you do and what are all the different jobs within my organization where that skill is foundational. And then even as you move people around or as individuals seek to have mobility within an organization. Once you start with what's transferable, then you have a better sense of where someone needs to upskill. They might have 70% of the job of the skills related to the new job, and then you know what that 30% upskilling is. But it gives you much more agility. Before we thought about skills is entirely something you have to get and that you were always starting at zero. Think about those coding bootcamps that people went to. It was knowing nothing about coding and then graduating with a certificate that you knew about coding. Everything was net new starting at zero. Skills transferability pushes us all to start with the skills we've got and then understand what are the new skills that we need to get.