When employers decide to take the leap on skills-first talent management, by prioritizing skills rather than degrees or job titles, they often ask how this strategy will help the bottom line. And it’s become increasingly clear that there’s no single answer.
Every company approaches hiring and talent practices from a different lens, while the shift to skills-first is driven by a wide range of factors. Sometimes—particularly in the tight labor market that has defined much of the past half-decade—the move is motivated by the need to quickly find new sources of talent and fill vacant roles. Sometimes it’s an intentional effort to better understand and inventory the skills of existing employees in ways that can help advance organizational goals without having to train or hire from the outside. Other times it’s because they see their competitors embracing skills-first and winning, and simply don’t want to get left behind.
The nonprofit business consultancy I lead, Grads of Life, conducts research and advisory work with over 200 employers. We’ve seen one consistent takeaway: it’s important for employers (and their partners) to share what works for them, and why it works. That’s the best way to demonstrate that skills-first practices drive results that justify the investment, including bottom-line impact. In fact, our experience suggests that anecdotes and examples—more than any specific data point or emerging ROI calculation—could be the most powerful way to create a groundswell that inspires more organizations to shift to skills-first.
With that in mind, what are forward-thinking employers doing with their skills-first practices? And how can their experiences inform how other businesses adopt new approaches to talent management?
Consider Trane Technologies’ approach to skills-first training. The HVAC giant launched a registered apprenticeship in 2023. That move was part of Trane’s bid to create a new pool of commercial service technicians—a critical role for both the company and the sector, which faces a rapidly aging talent pool. The apprenticeship is structured as a four-year learn-as-you-earn program designed to cultivate a pipeline of employees with the skills needed to hit the ground running. The program so far has seen five successful cohorts totaling over 150 participants across more than 30 states. It has a retention rate of 86%—meaning that nearly 9 in 10 of their apprentices remain with the company even after the apprenticeship ends.
Trane’s apprenticeship model is successful in large part because they were willing to open up job opportunities to talent pools that were previously considered atypical for the sector, expanding opportunity for the organization and for aspiring HVAC workers themselves. The demographics speak for themselves: More than 95% of Trane’s apprentices are among the 70M+ Americans who do not have a four-year degree but are skilled through alternative routes (STARs). More than a third come from diverse backgrounds, ones that are largely underrepresented in Trane’s sector.
Another striking model of success is Delta Air Lines’ wide-scale adoption of skills-first techniques in training and recruitment across its 100K-person organization. That work began with a campaign of thoughtful, intentional change management that put communication and the employee WIIFM (what’s in it for me?) front and center. Delta did that by pulling together a broad base of stakeholders to share feedback and by communicating changes clearly.
The company also transformed its skills approach from the bottom up, by eliminating degree requirements where appropriate, enabling a robust mobility platform for loyal staff, and partnering with Georgia State University to upskill frontline workers in coveted skills like advanced analytics via data visualization and platforms like Python and Tableau. Additionally, Delta introduced its Talent Hub, an internal platform to help employees not only assess and promote their current skills, but also pursue and develop new ones.
What made Delta’s approach work was the foundation it laid long in advance of any skills transformation. The company’s ongoing commitment to and practice of cross-functional collaboration helped it easily bring together teams in support of skills-first practices, allowing for a smooth and seamless transition. That deliberate approach has also secured ongoing buy-in from Delta’s leadership team.
Bank of America has undergone its own skills-first transformation, following its stated goal of hiring 10K employees from low-to-moderate income backgrounds. The company created its Pathways Program, which offers free digital coaching, individualized career mapping, and skills development for employees, as well as collaboration with local nonprofit partners to provide professional development training in local communities. As a result of those programs, Bank of America has already blown through its initial hiring goal—but its dedication to skills-first work still continues.
Bank of America’s commitment to supporting workers at every step of their career journey has made the skills-first transition possible. A combination of a defined onboarding plan, on-the-job training and upskilling, and a clear roadmap to full-time employment and growth potential sets its employees up for success, helping them build new skills and advance into new roles at the company. By focusing on successes at the individual level, Bank of America has ensured that skills-first is also a win for the organization at large.
Adopting and scaling skills-first strategies looks different at every organization. But that’s part of the point: no one-size-fits-all approach could ever work for companies with a wide range of needs, priorities, and cultures. The three employers described above have prioritized the thoughtful expansion of their talent pool, clear communication with internal and external stakeholders, and genuine employee advocacy—all based on their unique needs.
In our work advising these companies’ shift to skills-first, we’ve seen how thoughtful planning with a keen eye on staying true to business drivers has paid off. If these examples make one thing clear, it’s that the first rule of making skills-first approaches work is to know thyself. Understand your organization’s strengths, challenges, and goals, and then build a plan that makes those factors the foundation of your transformation.
The results from that approach—a workforce with skills aligned to your needs, greater engagement and job satisfaction, and readiness for the future—speak for themselves.
Ebony Thomas is managing partner at Grads of Life, a nonprofit business consultancy that works with leading employers to create skills-first talent strategies.