Most organizations now have a skills taxonomy, a skills platform, or at least a spreadsheet. Far fewer can say the strategy behind them is working.
For the 2027 Skills Intelligence Report, Docebo, 365Talents, and Brandon Hall Group surveyed more than 1,000 HR and L&D leaders and interviewed 11 practitioners, analysts, and academics. Their answers converge on six questions every HR and L&D leader eventually faces.
What is a skills-based organization, really?
A skills-based organization uses skills to make real decisions: who to hire, develop, move, and staff. Describing skills is not enough.
Vicky Kennedy, Founder and CEO of Echtus, argues that most enterprises aren't behind on identifying skills: "they're behind on definition." With no shared standard, organizations swing between a hyper-granular list too long to act on and a vague matrix that can't be measured. Her answer is a competency framework that starts from the behaviors a role needs, then ladders down into skills and knowledge. "Until that structure exists, 'skills-based' is a label, not an operating model."
Most organizations can describe their skills. Very few can tell you where those skills are actually being used, or what proficiency looks like in context. Without that, skills remain descriptive, not operational.
Who should own the skills strategy?
HR usually leads, but the outcome has to belong to the whole leadership team. In the survey, 63% of leaders name HR as the owner of the skills strategy, yet only 43% of organizations keep the learning technology budget fully within HR.
Sharath Hari, Vice President at Everest Group, calls it "a central misconception" that skills strategy sits mainly within HR or L&D. When skills are treated as a cataloging exercise, disconnected from resource allocation and delivery decisions, the data stays descriptive.
HR and L&D play an important role, but the broader responsibility lies with the entire C-level, because capability building has become a strategic organisational challenge.
Sandra Loughlin, Chief Learning Scientist at EPAM Systems, goes further: "This is not an HR problem or an HRtech problem." She describes talent intelligence as a data challenge that needs architecture, governance, and quality gates, and that HR should not carry alone.
Greg Cornman, Head of HR at Infinite Campus, puts it in practical terms: "I don't want this to live within HR and L&D. I want it to live within the operations of the organization."
Why do skills strategies stall?
Skills strategies rarely stall because of the tool. In the survey, 45% of leaders name conflicting priorities as their biggest barrier, against 25% for not having the right tool.
Most of the time, nobody agreed on what the training was supposed to accomplish. That’s a leadership problem, because the goal is leadership’s to set. Without one, there’s nothing to design backward from and nothing to measure against.
Anastasia Panina, Customer Success at 365Talents, sees the same pattern in implementations: "The project team can build a perfect platform, put every integration in place, but if leadership isn't ready to embrace the change it brings, isn't ready to support it with resources and influence, there's no success in it."
AI makes the problem sharper. Two-thirds of leaders say AI tooling investment grew at least as fast as their learning budget last year. For Egle Vinauskaite, Director and Strategic Advisor for AI in L&D and AI Transformation at Nodes, the conclusion is simple: "Investing in tooling but not in enablement is a category error."
How should you measure a skills strategy?
Measure decisions and business outcomes, not activity. Today, 64% of leaders measure impact through growth in targeted skills, a number that reads well internally but says little to a CFO.
Vicky Kennedy draws the line clearly. Activity looks like completions, dashboards, and updated spreadsheets. A working strategy looks like leaders using the framework unprompted to make a resourcing decision or justify a promotion. "The moment people outside L&D start using the language of the framework to talk about business problems, you know it's operational rather than decorative."
We had 93% of the company using an AI tool, but only about a third of employees scoring above the 75th percentile on role-critical AI skills. High adoption, low depth.
The report recommends tracking progress in stages: first adoption, then activity, then satisfaction. Business impact, such as roles filled internally, retention, or cost per hire, only becomes visible once those are in place.
"If the technology can't give you a clear view of the skills you have, the skills you need, and where the gaps are, you're making some pretty important workforce decisions without enough information." - Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
How do you get the C-suite on board?
Speak in the business's numbers. Only 52% of HR and L&D leaders say their executives have full visibility into the skills strategy.
L&D and HR leaders need to be having conversations not about efficiency but about what efficiency leads to. The CEO doesn’t care if you saved 10% of your time on this process or that. They do care if it affects profitability, customer lifetime value, or retention.
Liana Karimova, VP of People and Workforce Transformation at ThinkLabs AI, recommends building the business case before anyone asks for it: "I would recommend that HR and L&D leaders approach skills strategy with a clear business case in mind and be prepared to answer those questions for the C-suite."
In practice, that means tying skills reporting to metrics the CFO already tracks: cost per hire, retention, time to fill, and internal mobility.
Where do you start if you're starting from zero?
Start with one role and one decision. Alessio Artuffo, CEO of Docebo, sums up the report's advice: "Pick one role, one decision you want the data to change, and build from there."
Vicky Kennedy's first concrete move is to rebuild the skills list as a framework, where each skill ladders up to a competency, a capability, and a business result. Once that chain exists, leadership can see why a skill matters, not just that it's listed.
And don't wait for perfection. Alstom deployed skills tracking to 55,000 employees in nine weeks by accepting a directionally accurate view over a fully validated one. Its Global L&D Director, Vincent-Pierre Giroux, explains why: "Meeting once a year to review our skill framework no longer fits the speed of change."
Key takeaways
- A skills-based organization uses skills to make hiring, development, mobility, and staffing decisions.
- HR can lead the strategy, but the outcome belongs to the whole C-suite.
- Most strategies stall on priorities and sponsorship, not on tools.
- Measure decisions and business outcomes, not completions and skill counts.
- Start with one role and one decision, then build from there.
The full survey data and all 11 expert perspectives are in the 2027 Skills Intelligence Report. Download here!
The full survey data and all 11 expert perspectives are in the 2027 Skills Intelligence Report.
Download
