In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations face the daunting challenge of keeping up with ever-changing skills needs. While recruiting new talent might seem like a straightforward solution, it is not sustainable in the long run. Companies are increasingly aware that they cannot hire all the talent they require, yet they struggle to bridge the gap with internal talent-building approaches. In fact, according to a 2024 Gartner survey of 190 HR leaders, only 18% agree that their organization effectively moves talent internally to fill skills gaps.
Traditional development programs, such as formal training, mentorship, and individual development plans, help employees develop proficiency in the skills needed to fill in-demand roles, but the focus on proficiency in all skills needed for a new role delays movement into a new role where employees can contribute value with newly developed skills. However, organizations can enhance enterprise skills preparedness, a measure of workforce readiness, by focusing on “skills promise” rather than waiting for employees to be fully proficient.
Understanding Skills Promise
Gartner defines skills promise as an individual’s willingness and ability to learn new skills from a minimum foundation. It allows organizations to meet their skills needs by leveraging and redeploying current skills without compromising business continuity. Organizations can quickly fill critical skills gaps by moving employees with promise to projects where they can meaningfully contribute while still learning. This approach enables employees to add value to the organization sooner, rather than waiting for proficiency across all requirements.
Strengthening the L&D and Talent Management Partnership
Learning and Development (L&D) has long been at the forefront of continuous upskilling and on-the-job learning. However, investing in promise is not solely an L&D task; it requires a joint venture between talent management and L&D. This partnership spans multiple intersecting workflows, including identifying critical skills gaps, supporting career development, and enabling talent mobility. HR leaders must address four key concerns to integrate learning and mobility to build promise:
Identify Employees with Promise
To identify employees with promise, organizations must redefine the skills required for each role. Most organizations have extensive lists of requirements, limiting the available talent pool.
Progressive organizations have realized that most roles share a common core of skills and behaviors that indicate success, such as curiosity, adaptability, collaboration, and customer orientation. While role-defining requirements may be necessary, focusing on foundational skills and behaviors enables organizations to create a talent bench that can be readily upskilled for high-demand roles.
Address Manager Reservations
Managers often hesitate to hire talent that is not fully proficient in all required skills. For example, an October 2024 Gartner survey of 3,200 employees revealed that 51% of managers request recruiters to only focus on recruiting employees with all the desired skills when recruiting internally. Many managers base hiring decisions on current proficiency rather than potential to learn.
Gartner research shows that managers who hire for promise see better results, with employees performing more effectively in their roles. Leading organizations help managers understand the value of promise through evidence-based value stories, showcasing the benefits of hiring promise talent. These stories should include quantitative and qualitative data, contrasting open roles’ skill requirements with existing skills, onboarding and development needs, and success stories. The goal is to build manager confidence in hiring promising talent without forcing decisions that may not suit current team needs.
Maintain Performance While Learning
Employees with skills promise can contribute to filling skills gaps, but they do require holistic support. Typical individual learning solutions aim to build proficiency over time, supporting long-term skills preparedness and career development goals. However, these solutions are insufficient to mitigate performance risks. Leading HR functions work with leaders across the business to integrate learning solutions with workflow adjustments (e.g. changes to project sequencing or team structure) to realize value from talent with promise and accelerate their time to performance.
Integrated learning and team-based workflow adjustments have a significant impact on skills preparedness compared to individual development support. L&D and Talent Management leaders collaborate with business unit leaders to define output that employees with promise can achieve at their current skill level, the support they need to deliver expected output, and pathways to unlock that support. Agreed guardrails on ownership and contribution enable teams to get work done while talent members with promise come up to speed.
Structure Learning Networks
Relying solely on managers for learning needs is insufficient for talent with promise as managers are often overwhelmed by upskilling responsibilities, spending significant time on new team members. To support this talent without overburdening managers, L&D must scale expertise with learning networks. Skill-based learning networks create an environment where employees learn together from expert resources, practice together, coach one another, and do so organically and sustainably.
This approach reduces the burden on managers and provides employees with a community of experts rather than ad hoc peer connections. Structuring learning networks to scale expertise significantly enhances skills preparedness compared to one-on-one support. L&D leaders must identify employees with critical knowledge about emerging skills and facilitate expertise sharing across team boundaries.
