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One step all companies should take to keep pace with an ever-changing labor market, advises LinkedIn’s chief economist Karin Kimbrough, is adopting a holistic, skills-first talent strategy across both hiring and learning and development programs. This will, she says, address an urgent business challenge: “finding the people who have the skills that businesses need, keeping them, and upskilling them.”

Karin’s advice is a key insight in LinkedIn’s latest Global Talent Trends Report, out today. The report surfaces data insights from both LinkedIn’s Economic Graph and the LinkedIn platform to explain how labor-market trends impact candidates, employees, and workplaces. 

LinkedIn’s report shows that while hiring has slowed around the world, many forward-thinking employers are prioritizing internal mobility, in part because employee skill-building is linked to higher rates of retention.

But what does this data mean for talent acquisition and learning and development professionals? Here are five takeaways from the report, alongside advice from experts and LinkedIn Learning courses, to help you put the takeaways into practice.

1. Build a strong talent pipeline by putting skills first 

Based on data from 17 countries, the Global Talent Trends Report shows that hiring has slowed around the world: from a 19% decline in Switzerland to 28% in the U.S. and Brazil to 42% in Singapore. 

Whether you are hiring for select positions now or are building a candidate pipeline so you’re ready once the economy bounces back, adopting a skills-first strategy will help you find the talent best prepared to meet your business’s needs.

Even in a global environment where the number of overall hires has decreased, Stacy Donovan Zapar, founder of The Talent Agency, offers tips for incorporating skills throughout the talent lifecycle. 

If you are not currently hiring: 

• Conduct a skills audit to identify the skills your workforce has now and the skills you’ll need that are most closely linked with business priorities. 

• Connect with leaders and hiring managers to revamp your candidate profiles and orient them around skills. 

• Foster internal mobility by identifying top performers who have the right aptitude, motivation, and transferable skills to be moved into more challenging roles.

If you are currently hiring:

• Look beyond candidates’ former employers, college degrees, and years of experience, and instead highlight skills in your job-postings.

• Have recruiters identify candidates’ hard and soft skills in phone screens, and work skills into candidate scorecards and hiring decisions. 

• Incorporate skills into your company’s employee referral programs by asking employees to highlight referrals’ hard and soft skills.

Ultimately, Stacy says, putting skills first leads to stronger teams. “People grow their career paths in many ways,” she adds, “including on-the-job learning, community colleges, certification programs, and online learning. Focusing on skills and past experience and performance is a much more accurate predictor of success and will lead to stronger, more diverse teams that have both the breadth and depth of skills to deliver.”

And by building a talent pipeline focused on skills now, you’re setting yourself up for successful hires in the future. LinkedIn data shows that organizations using skills data to find talent are 22% more likely to receive InMail acceptances and 60% more likely to make a successful hire than those that don’t rely on skills as part of their hiring process. 

Learn more in Lori Niles-Hofmann’s LinkedIn Learning course Upskilling and Reskilling your Workforce, unlocked through July 28, 2023. 

2. Showcase employee growth and advancement in your employer brand 

LinkedIn data shows that, beyond the typical attributes of an ideal job, upskilling and career advancement come in at No. 4 and No. 5 respectively in the list of candidates’ top priorities.

Once you have created a culture of learning, it’s important to communicate about that culture as part of a clear employer value proposition. 

This is an opportunity for recruiting and L&D teams to partner together more closely. Crystal Lim-Lange, CEO of Forest Wolf, recommends recruiters showcase learning and development opportunities as part of job fairs.

“Recruiting events should include presentations from L&D to showcase career growth paths, development opportunities, and success stories from staff,” Crystal says in LinkedIn’s 2023 Workplace Learning Report.

This advice isn’t limited to recruiting events — shine a light on learning opportunities and advancement across all of your employer branding efforts. Update your job descriptions to reflect these benefits. Showcase employees’ stories of growth through educational benefits or mentorship programs on your career site. And add your company’s commitments to career growth and learning to your LinkedIn Company Page. 

3. Make employees aware of internal mobility opportunities 

Reduced headcount and hiring pauses make retaining existing employees more important than ever. According to the 2023 Future of Recruiting Report, when an employer is highly committed to internal hiring, employees stay at that company 60% longer. 

In many countries, employees are starting to see the value of these internal moves, especially when they know that their efforts to build skills will be rewarded with career advancement. According to the Global Talent Trends Report, employees in the U.S., Canada, India, the U.K., and Australia are just as likely to seek out internal roles as external roles when they’re looking to advance. In other countries — including France, Italy, and Brazil — employees are far more likely to look for a job at a new company.

Across the board, there’s an opportunity to foster more internal mobility by publicizing internal job opportunities and articulating what skills are required for internal moves. One way companies can make it easier for employees to discover roles outside of their department is by investing in an internal talent marketplace.

Talent teams and hiring managers are also critical in facilitating internal moves. For example, if a recruiter is using LinkedIn Recruiter to fill an open role, they can use the Internal Candidate Spotlight to identify current employees who have relevant skills and valuable institutional knowledge.

The most impactful way to improve your internal hiring process, says Stacey Gordon, founder of Rework Work, is to help managers shift their thinking and reframe career growth beyond promotions. 

“It’s less about losing an employee to another team,” says Stacey, “and more about understanding that coaching and advocating for their direct reports helps managers to forecast openings on their team, identify what skills their current team members have, and what skills may be lacking. When managers get on board with internal moves, they send the message that employees are seen, valued, and rewarded based on their skills, which fuels engagement and retention.”

Learn more in Stacey Gordon’s LinkedIn Learning course, Diversity Recruiting, unlocked through July 28, 2023. 

4. Invest in the next generation of leaders 

While many organizations are setting up internal mobility programs as a way for employees to build new skills and stay agile, not all workers are taking advantage of those internal opportunities. The Global Talent Trends Report found that Gen Z employees are less likely to make internal moves compared to Gen Xers and Millennials.

At the same time, we know that these younger workers value career advancement and gaining new skills. According to the Future of Recruiting Report, Gen Z is almost 50% more likely to value moving up the ranks compared with Gen X. But Gen Z employees, whether they’re first-generation professionals or young people who started working during the pandemic, may not be aware of the opportunities and learning programs available to advance their career. 

The takeaway for talent pros? Help Gen Z connect the dots between skill building, internal mobility opportunities, and career growth so you can retain them — and build a pipeline of talented, diverse leaders from the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in the workforce. 

Gen Z employees may also have a different perspective on what it means to be a leader, advises Christopher Lind, VP and chief learning officer at ChenMed. “If you want their engagement in leadership training and skill-building opportunities,” Christopher says, “get to know your audience and ensure you’re serving up what matters most to them. This includes learning about and navigating workplace culture but also gaining the skills needed to play an active role in shaping the culture and their career, from DEI and well-being to mentorship and sponsorship.”

Christopher stresses the importance of not just delivering the right content, but delivering it in the right channels. “In addition to achieving intended outcomes,” he says, “format matters. You can’t assume that the way you’ve been delivering opportunities is good enough or will fly with Gen Z. You need to meet them where they are and experiment with new modalities along the way. As a bonus, you’ll likely discover new approaches that end up being better for everyone.”

Learn more in Sophie Wade’s LinkedIn Learning course Attracting, Hiring, and Working with Gen Z, unlocked through July 28, 2023. 

5. Connect skill building to the bottom line 

If you need more C-suite support to act on these takeaways, data shows that investing in skills pays off. The Global Talent Trends Report shows that companies that help employees learn skills on the job can expect a nearly 7% higher retention rate.

A skills-first strategy also bolsters talent acquisition efforts in their goals to build diverse teams. It gives hiring teams a competitive edge by sourcing from different talent pools and helps them find high-potential candidates who can bring a fresh perspective to the business. LinkedIn data shows that a skills-first approach to hiring can add nearly 10x more eligible employees to employer talent pools. And research shows that diverse teams drive increased performance and profitability. In addition, aiding retention through skill-building can help save companies money, since employee attrition can cost companies one-half to two times an employee’s salary. 

HR has often struggled with showing the value of skill building, which is why Crystal Lim-Lange, CEO of Forest Wolf, encourages TA and L&D to collaborate and amplify the significance of skill building. “HR departments in the most progressive organizations,” she says, “take three key actions: taking a holistic approach to skills building throughout the employee lifecycle; emphasizing collaboration and displaying entrepreneurial thinking by collectively problem-solving; and taking ownership of shared challenges like retention. At the end of the day, HR is about actively listening to what our people are saying, and every piece of the puzzle, whether it is TA or L&D, has valuable insights on what people want out of their work experience in order to feel engaged and motivated.”

Final thoughts: Take the first step 

Although building a skills-first talent strategy can feel daunting, it is important that talent pros take the first step — even a pilot program can help move your organization forward. 

“Introducing a skills-first talent strategy can feel big,” says Teuila Hanson, LinkedIn’s chief people officer. “But every step helps. So while you may be focusing on organization-wide initiatives, don’t be afraid to highlight the business impact that upskilling even a small group of employees can have.”

Watch these five LinkedIn Learning courses to jump-start your company on implementing an inclusive, skills-first talent strategy — they’re free through July 28, 2023. 

Upskilling and Reskilling your Workforce with Lori Niles-Hofmann Promoting Internal Mobility as a Manager with Alisa Cohn Attracting, Hiring, and Working with Gen Z with Sophie Wade Diversity Recruiting with Stacey Gordon Creating a Culture of Learning with Naphtali Bryant and Jason Mulero

Check out the full Global Talent Trends Report here.

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