From Roles to Skills: What It Really Takes to Become a Skills-Based Organization - Koreen Pagano

As work evolves faster than job roles can keep up, organizations are under pressure to make better decisions about hiring, development, mobility, and workforce planning. In response, skills-based approaches have emerged as a promising alternative to traditional, role-centered models. Yet many initiatives struggle to move beyond pilots, taxonomies, or disconnected skills data.

In this session, Koreen Pagano draws on extensive research and hands-on experience working with organizations at different stages of maturity to unpack what separates meaningful progress from surface-level adoption. Rather than treating skills as another framework or technology implementation, the session reframes skills as a shared language that connects people, processes, and systems.Attendees will explore how skills data can improve visibility into workforce capabilities, support more equitable and informed decisions, and enable organizations to adapt as work continues to change. The session also addresses common obstacles, including unclear definitions, trust in skills data, organizational readiness, and the temptation to overinvest before establishing purpose. The result is a grounded, practical perspective on how learning and talent teams can help their organizations move toward a skills-based future with intention and clarity.

Key Topics Include:

Why traditional role- and credential-based models no longer reflect how work gets done
What defines a skills-based organization beyond learning and hiring initiatives
How skills data can support better decisions across hiring, development, and mobility
Common pitfalls that cause skills efforts to stall or lose credibility
The role of learning and talent teams in building skills-based systems and culture
How to start small while keeping a long-term vision for transformation