自从亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）在一个多世纪前写下劳动分工以来，工作一直是组织工作和做出劳动力决策的主导结构(https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/skills-based-organizational-strategy.html#endn)管理者围绕“工作”中的人员提供反馈、招聘、晋升和组织团队。员工将工作视为自己的“工作”。整个人力资源职能建立在具有固定职责的职能工作概念的基础上，由人力资源部编写工作描述、设定薪酬水平、创建组织结构图、分配培训、，并对所有预定义作业进行性能评估。
但工作真的定义了我们的工作吗？随着工作越来越灵活地应对环境的快速变化，而不是为了提高效率而设计的标准化工作，答案是否定的。工作正在迅速让位给流动性更强的工作：在德勤最近的一项调查中，[2](https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/talent/skills-based-organizational-strategy.html#endnote-2） 63%的高管表示，他们组织中的工作目前是在团队或项目中进行的，超出了员工的核心工作描述，81%的高管说，工作越来越多地跨职能边界进行，36%的高管称，工作越来越由组织外的员工进行，他们在组织内根本没有明确的工作。不到一半（42%）的受访者表示，他们组织的工作描述在规定需要完成的工作方面做得“出色”。展望未来，只有19%的人认为传统工作是组织工作以实现商业目标的最佳方式。
如果工作不再是指导我们做出工作和劳动力决策以执行组织战略的基本组成部分，那么什么是？答案可能是“技能”-广义上定义为硬技能（如编码、数据分析和会计）、人的能力（如批判性思维和情商）和潜力（包括潜在素质、能力或可能发展并导致未来成功的相邻技能）。基于技能的组织是一种新的工作和劳动力运作模式，它将人才管理置于首位，重新定义和重新设想每一种人才实践，使其更多地基于技能而不是工作，并重新定义工作的组织方式，以便能够流畅地发展技能，以跟上工作的发展步伐——所有这些都处于一种永久性重塑的状态。
为了衡量向以技能为基础的组织转型的过程，德勤询问了10个国家的高管，他们正在采用何种类型的以技能为核心的实践，以及在何种程度上。这是我们的发现吗？尽管各组织在工作和劳动力决策中仍然在很大程度上看重学位和工作经验，而不是展示的技能和潜力（只有17%的人力资源和业务主管表示，他们的组织看重展示的技能与潜力，而不是学位和工作经历），但现在使用基于技能的实践的组织比我们预期的多。全球各地的人力资源和业务主管都对继续这一趋势感兴趣。
近十分之九（89%）的高管表示，技能对于组织定义工作、部署人才、管理职业和评估员工的方式越来越重要。几乎相同的人数（约90%）至少在某种程度上使用基于技能的实践，经常尝试使用技能来做出工作和劳动力的决策，或者仅为部分劳动力或业务部门使用技能。但根据实践，只有15%到30%的少数人在很大程度上真正采用了基于技能的方法：在整个组织中，以明确和可重复的方式，真正重视技能而不是工作。3
转变为以技能为基础的组织是我们所知的从工作到工作的根本转变，这是一个持续的过程，它重新定义了我们认为工作的核心，即我们如何领导、管理或贡献工作，以及人力资源如何在实践中支持员工队伍。虽然这当然不是一个轻松的旅程，但那些踏上这一旅程的人可以获得更大的灵活性、更好地实现每个员工的真正潜力，并相信组织拥有合适的人才来满足不断变化的业务需求，并超越竞争对手。
请查看我们即将发布的报告，其中包含我们的完整研究结果，包括领先组织如何转变为基于技能的组织，关键挑战和如何克服这些挑战，以及基于技能的企业对未来工作的“未来”可能意味着什么。
Ever since Adam Smith wrote about the division of labor over a century ago, jobs have been the dominating structure for organizing work and making decisions about the workforce.1 Managers give feedback, hire, promote, and organize their teams around people in “jobs.” Workers think of work as their “job.” And the entire human-resource function has been built on the concept of the functional job with a fixed set of responsibilities, with HR writing job descriptions, setting compensation levels, creating organizational charts, assigning training, and giving performance reviews all for predefined jobs.
But do jobs really define what we do? Increasingly, as work evolves to be more about nimbly responding to rapid changes in our environment, than about standardized work designed for scalable efficiency, the answer is no. Jobs are quickly giving way to more fluid work: In a recent Deloitte survey,2 63% of executives say work in their organizations is currently being performed in teams or projects outside of people’s core job descriptions, 81% say work is increasingly performed across functional boundaries, and 36% say work is increasingly being performed by workers outside of the organization who don’t have defined jobs in the organization at all. Fewer than half (42%) of respondents say their organization’s job descriptions do an “excellent job” of specifying the work that needs to be done. Looking forward, only 19% say traditional jobs are the best way to organize work to fulfill business goals.
If jobs are no longer the fundamental building block that guides us in making decisions about work and the workforce to execute our organizational strategy, then what is? The answer could be skills—broadly defined as hard skills (such as coding, data analysis, and accounting), human capabilities (such as critical thinking and emotional intelligence), and potential (including latent qualities, abilities, or adjacent skills that may be developed and lead to future success). The skills-based organization is a new operating model for work and the workforce that turns talent management on its head, redefining and reimagining every talent practice to be based more on skills than on jobs, and redefining how work is organized so that skills can be fluidly developed to keep pace with work as it evolves―all in a state of perpetual reinvention.
To gauge the transformational journey toward skills-based organizations, Deloitte asked executives in 10 countries what types of skills-based practices they are adopting, and to what extent. Our finding? Although organizations are still largely valuing degrees and job experience over demonstrated skills and potential in making decisions about work and the workforce (with only 17% of HR and business executives saying their organization values demonstrated skills and potential over degrees and job experience), more organizations than we expected are using skills-based practices now. And there’s significant interest from HR and business executives across the globe in continuing the trend.
Nearly nine in 10 executives (89%) say skills are becoming more important for the way organizations are defining work, deploying talent, managing careers, and valuing employees. Nearly the same number (about 90%) are using skills-based practices at least to some extent, often experimenting with using skills to make decisions about work and the workforce, or employing them for only some workforces or segments of the business. But only a few—somewhere between 15 and 30%, depending on the practice—are truly adopting skills-based approaches to a significant extent: across the organization, and in a clear and repeatable way that truly values skills over jobs.3
Transforming into a skills-based organization is a fundamental shift from work as we know it—a continuing journey that redefines the very core of what we consider work to be—requiring significant and often difficult changes to how we lead, manage, or contribute to work, and how HR supports the workforce across practices. Although it certainly is not an easy journey, those that embark on it can be rewarded with greater agility, greater realization of every worker’s true potential, and the confidence that the organization has the right talent to meet ever-evolving business needs and outperform the competition.
Look for our upcoming report with our complete research findings, including how leading organizations are transforming into skills-based organizations, key challenges and how to overcome them, and what skills-based organizations might mean for the “future” of the future of work.
