How Deconstructing Work Builds a Stronger Workforce

Episode Summary:

As more organizations adopt a skills-based hiring model, the importance of breaking down and analyzing the skills needed to get work done increases. On this episode of the Subject to Talent podcast, Cat Halliwell, executive director for service excellence at AGS, shares her innovative approach to a task-first analysis to jobs and deployment for hiring and structuring how work gets done.

Transcript:

Bruce Morton: Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) presents the Subject to Talent podcast, a hub for global workforce leaders to unleash the power of human enterprise. Listen in as we explore the most innovative and transformational topics impacting businesses today.

Bruce Morton: Hi, I am Bruce Morton, the host of the Subject to Talent podcast. Today, I welcome my very good friend and colleague, Cat Halliwell. Cat has nearly 20 years’ experience in our wonderful workforce industry and serves as executive director for service excellence, which in a nutshell, being responsible for driving operational excellence, continuous improvement, and all things change management, as well as designing workforce transformation initiatives. And today, the subject of the conversation is going to be around the fact that Cat is actually the architect of the playbook on deconstructing work, and that's going to help shape the future of work itself. So, super excited to chat with you today, Cat. Welcome.

Cat Halliwell: Thank you, Bruce. I'm excited to be here.

Bruce Morton: Cool. So let's dive straight in. Here at the Subject to Talent podcast, those who regular listeners will know, we always start with the same question, and that is how did you get into the workforce industry and what inspired you to develop the work deconstruction approach to transformation – transforming how work gets done?

Cat Halliwell: So I think like most people who get into the workforce industry, it kind of happened by accident. But I did start in agency recruitment straight out of university in 2005, so I did that for about seven years and then in 2012, I actually got the opportunity to join Talent2/AGS to build out the contingent workforce management for one of our UK-based clients. So essentially, over the next nine years, I ran a number of client programs for AGS and then in 2016, moved into the role of executive director for client delivery. And then back in 2021, I was given a further opportunity then to set up the service excellence function for the region. And really, during my time in client delivery, I was really lucky that I got quite a lot of exposure to a wide variety of organizations and talent leaders that gave me I'd say a pretty well-rounded view of the kind of talent market and the challenges that organizations were facing, when it came to hiring it and getting work done.

And I guess one of the things that really became apparent to me at the time was that the majority of organizations were really facing the same challenges in hiring the right people while simultaneously trying to control costs, and that they were by and large actually taking the same approach of following the tried and tested methods of how it had always been done, even though they weren't necessarily achieving the results that they were looking for. And as the saying goes, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And so working alongside yourself and Simon Bradbury on the concept of the Universal Workforce Model™, that really got me thinking practically about what shifts really needed to happen for these different results to be achieved. And as in client conversations, people were saying, "Okay. Well, that's great. I'm on board with the concept, but where do I start?" And that's really where I took it upon myself to be the person who was going to attempt to answer that question, and deconstruction is really the beginning of that journey.

Bruce Morton: Cool. Well, thank you for that. So, it's over 12 years you and I have been working together.

Cat Halliwell: Yeah, apparently.

Bruce Morton: Cool. Time flies. So as many people can attest, and unless people have been living under a rock, they'll have heard the phrase skills-based approach or skills-based organization, or skills first, something with skills at the front of it. I'm sure you have an opinion on that. So, for our listeners, can you just share your thoughts and observations around that topic? Is it really just about skills or is there more to it than that, actually, than the tagline or the headline on articles?

Cat Halliwell: Yeah. I think you're right. I think over the last year or so, the concept of skills-based organizations or skills-based hiring is really starting to gain traction. And we're seeing much more content being produced and companies wanting to go on this skills journey. However, I guess what we're really seeing is that because it is such a tricky subject and people don't necessarily know where to start, we are seeing organizations just bolting skills onto their current and traditional structures and processes in a way to kind of move forward, but then they're not getting the results and are frustrated because they thought that by doing this, that the world was going to change, and it is not. And fundamentally, that really from my perspective is because actually, skills is just one component of a much bigger picture. Highlighting the importance of skills over experiences is a fundamental factor, but really, without looking at the work first and the way that that is structured, all you're really doing is adding an additional layer of complexity on something that many acknowledge that is no longer working or achieving the results.

So really, the kind of opinion that I have is in order to match skills to the work, you need to understand the work. So you need to understand the tasks that are required to be completed within the work, and then that becomes the starting point rather than the traditional job description that exists today.

So, asking the question, "What needs to be completed and what is required to get it done in the best way?" Is a great starting point, and that'll really allow you to consider all of the options that might be available to you across all the different kind of workforce categories. So whether that's your employees, the internal teams, the contingent hiring or services or via gig, but it also opens up the conversation to include AI and automation in the planning. And so once you have the answer to the question of what the work is and what's involved in that, you then actually also need the technology and infrastructure to support you to moving forward in that way. And that's really where the operating model that supports that, the processes that underpin it, and the tech ecosystem really comes into play.

Bruce Morton: Right. You said something very smart there, of course you did. You mentioned workforce categories and you included AI and automation and the extended workforce, because it's interesting when I think if you surveyed 100 people and said, "How would you define the workforce?" I'd probably say the employees. But of course we're in a world now and it's far, far bigger than that, and I think that's an important point, so I'm glad you made that. But let's get very practical here. Let's look at the most basic question. What does it mean to deconstruct work?

Cat Halliwell: I think deconstruction in a nutshell is really job analysis. We're looking at analyzing a job role and identifying all of its component tasks. And I emphasize that, all of its component tasks, because often when we look at the job specs of today, these include the big-ticket items and there'll be assumed tasks that sit underneath that hidden within the responsibilities section or whatever it might be. But the deconstruction process really allows you to dig deeper and detail out exactly what needs to happen for the work to be completed, and then if you couple that with a time and motion study, also answers the question of how frequent those tasks need to happen. So really, once you have that kind of task list from starting with the job description and breaking that down, what you're able to do is really critically review those and identify the operational efficiencies and the opportunities for those productivity gains by reducing any duplication that may exist within a process or redundancies of it's always kind of happened that way, but actually, do we need to be doing that?

But also, it allows you to categorize the tasks. So when we first started talking about this, I kind of came up with three buckets, which is human-centric, so it can only be done by humans, and in that I do kind of think around anything that requires human interaction, emotional intelligence, moral reasoning, or complex decision-making. Anything that really requires that human touch, whether that's judgment or high levels of creativity or empathy and they can't be easily replicated or replaced by AI. You then have the AI augmented tasks, and here I see these are the types of tasks that can really benefit from AI to improve or supplement the human capabilities. So whether that's around creating more productivity or knowledge without completely eliminating the human involvement. And really, the way that I see these tasks is there's probably moderate levels of data, there's patterns and recommendations that can be done by AI, but really it's about supporting the human to perform better and make better decisions, et cetera.

And then the last one is really around automation, and these are the types of things that actually humans don't need to be involved in. They might've done historically because the automation technologies and things like that weren't there to do that, but really we're looking at the task where either the human involvement is either low or just not necessary. So how can we improve processes by automating them and lower the demand for those repetitive and predictable tasks? And when people are looking at these types of things, it's things like where there are low levels of variation, it's normally always the same answer. The complexity level is low and there is things that can easily be optimized because you know what the output is going to be time and time again, and you just don't need a human to do it anymore.

Bruce Morton: It's interesting, because when the fear mongers a handful of years ago were talking about, "The robots are coming, the robots are coming, they're taking all the jobs," all of the imagery at the time, and the conversation, was around manual work. People stood on a production line and now that's being done by a robot, and we have these very cool videos online where you can see, I don't know, cupcakes being made or something, but everybody thought of it that way. But in your examples you gave there with augmentation, it was not somebody with a super powered suit on lifting heavy items. It's actually more of a white collar organization that we're thinking about. So it's interesting how it shifted from everybody thought the blue collar was going to be impacted, but now there's the knowledge workers as well being impacted and enabled. It's not just a negative thing, right?

Cat Halliwell: Right, and I think that it's a really interesting point because I think if we were having this conversation a year or two years ago, the concept of generative AI and those kind of things where it was still very new, people were unsure, whereas now it's become so familiar to people that actually, it feels easier to start there because that exists today whereas the robot suits, maybe not so much. Or maybe they do, I'm not a manufacturing expert. But certainly, there is a familiarity that people now have with these types of technologies and how they can increase the productivity of the humans to be able to achieve the same results.

Bruce Morton: So going back to your point you made, and I think that's a real great takeaway, people start with the work almost like you're starting with the skills that you've missed a couple of steps. So if people buy into that concept, "I need to start with the work," how can they get started? Where do they start with the work?

Cat Halliwell: And I think it is a really interesting point and something that I do get asked quite a lot. And I think for me, the simplest and probably the easiest way is to start with a role deconstruction, to look at a role and understand what [are the] steps need to go through. And the reality is, people are familiar with job descriptions or job specifications, and you take the time to understand what's in there. So, it sounds like this is a teaching someone to suck eggs, but go through the job spec, identify the verbs. Right? Identify the task.

Bruce Morton: My English teacher from many years ago would be very happy you're saying that.

Cat Halliwell: When I first started talking about this, I did have to Google to make sure I was using the right one, but it's about really identifying those things. So, things like design, develop, test – if we're talking about software applications – and then identify what is the object of the verb? So, it is a kind of software applications. And then being able to create these task statements based on the job description. And essentially, you just go through that. You go through the job description and identify everything that's listed, but then you use your own experience of whether it's working alongside these people or managing these people to go, "Okay, well, what's missing? What is the job spec not listing out? How accurate is it? Is there consistency in how we do it?" And the reality is often, job specs haven't been updated for quite some time.

So they might be out of date, they might be different things that people will need to revise or add or delete some of the tasks when they're looking at the work that actually needs to happen so that it is going to be an accurate reflection of the work. So that's step one, create the task list, go through the job spec, fill in any gaps, and take out stuff that doesn't need to be there. And then second step I would say is to go through that categorization exercise, and that is where you are going to find your opportunities for automation. People talk about that all the time, how can we take advantage of AI and automation? And this really gives you a path to do that as well. So, you're going through and you able to go, "right, okay, we don't need to hire for those skills because actually, that piece is going to be automated. And actually, the skills that we thought we might need to hire for, if you introduce AI, does that change? Does that shift what kind of skill set that you're looking for? "

And you're then left with your human-centric skills. And the important piece around here is then to think about if I need a skill X, what level of proficiency do I need in that skill? So for example, if you were looking for someone who needed Excel skills, there is a very different person that you would engage if you needed someone with advanced knowledge of Excel and being able to develop within the tool versus someone who needs to produce reports, pivot tables. So actually looking at what needs to happen and then being able to look at the proficiency level required. And it is down to organizations how they want to map those from beginner to advanced or whether it's a one to eight scale, but just having a scale to go, "This is the level that I need within that skill set."

And then if you have, I guess, coupled the deconstruction process with a time of motion study, you can then use that to help you prioritize your list of required skills. So you've got the tasks, you know what skills you need to complete them, but actually, if you've got something where it is only completed on an infrequent or ad hoc basis, that skill might not take as much a priority in your hiring because it's something that's required to be completed every day. However, the caveat that I would say there is if there is an infrequent task that is incredibly valuable, important, then that might sway your weightings as well. But it allows you to just look at the work that needs to be done, how often it needs to be done, and then make a decision. And the good news is it is the hiring manager's decision. We're not taking this out of the hands of someone else to go, "This is the process."

Just in the same way as people today will tailor job specs to match their requirements, this is the same process. All you're allowing it to do is just be more specific and targeted in what you're looking to do. And so that's how I would suggest to get started. And then people can just select the top skills that's going to make the most difference to the work, but also being aware of what other skills are going to be required for future demand planning would be the ideal to get to. Not saying we're going to start there as the step one, but being able to do that and then knowing for the future that you're going to need a specific skill set for hiring and then being able to have development plans around that using our evaluation from an employee's perspective against those skills is all where we want to get to, but the starting point is to deconstruct a role.

Bruce Morton: Right. And then as you mentioned there, that will help with where do we need to upskill? What are the skills of the future? When I say future is around the corner literally, and are we developing people that in skills that we won't need in six months? Well, let's change that. It's really interesting. So once you've done all that, have you got any examples that you're able to share just to bring this to life for the audience?

Cat Halliwell: Yeah. Actually, we did this recently for one of our implementation manager roles. So, if you don't know, an implementation manager within AGS is a project manager. To find someone with the very specific skill set of implementing managed service provider (MSP) or recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) programs or services procurement programs, there's only a small number of people that have that skill and experience that would match what the job description says. And so we thought we would think about it a little bit differently and actually break down the tasks that those people need to do. And it was actually really interesting because when we were going through that kind of process, there was one of the team that kind of made a joke going, "Oh, I think a wedding planner would be great at this."

And actually, when you break it down, it was like the actual tasks that were involved were exactly the same. There was an end date that you were working towards, a number of different things that needed to happen, a bunch of dependencies, you were managing all of that, the risk element. So actually, when you break that down, the opening of the talent pool was significant when you looked at okay, well, what is it that we actually need people to do? Do they need experience necessarily of previously implementing an MSP or RPO program? Possibly not, but they need to be really good at all of these key things, and that's where the implementation manager hiring a wedding planner came out. And the person that we did hire wasn't a wedding planner but didn't have any experience, and is doing a fantastic job.

Bruce Morton: Awesome. Great story. And that's obviously an internal thing where we're conducting workshops with our clients and helping people on this journey. Just share with how that typically goes.

Cat Halliwell: So I actually ran a deconstruction workshop with a number of clients recently, and we looked at the job specification for a talent acquisition manager and one for a services procurement category manager. And we went through the exercise of, again, identifying the verbs, building those into a task list, and there was a couple of things that came out of that that I thought was really interesting conversations. So the first thing that came out of it is when you rewrote the tasks, actually there was a huge crossover in the tasks of a talent acquisition manager and the tasks of a procurement category manager, and the groups that we were talking to came from both of these fields. And I think if you just started by saying, "Oh, this is what I think the outcome's going to be," I'm not sure that they would've necessarily agreed, right? But actually, as we were going through it, there was quite a lot of crossover. Now, I'm not saying they were identical, but there was quite a lot of crossover in terms of what was needed, and therefore the skills that were required to do those jobs were quite similar.

And so we ended up having a discussion and there was three different groups all having similar discussions around this, and the end kind of question I asked is, "Well, would you hire someone in TA to work in your procurement team and vice versa?" And the answers kind of came back, "Well, actually maybe on this basis, maybe I would. Maybe they don't need experience." And then to kind of flip that on its head, it's like, "Is that what you do now?" And the answer was, "No, I look for someone with experience." So I think that in itself was just a kind of mindset shift when actually you break down the work and you realize that actually, there is a talent pool out there that have the ability to do the job and do it really well that you're just discounting right now because they haven't done it before in exactly the guise that you are looking for.

Bruce Morton: And to try and do this at scale, obviously AI is going to help with that because many organizations have 15,000 job specs or goal descriptions. What would your advice be in terms of is it overnight or do you gradually? How do you approach this?

Cat Halliwell: I'd say start small. This is a significant change, and I think where I was talking early on about organizations tapping skills onto the current processes, I think that's where some people may have tried to do a big-bang approach and actually, the small incremental change is what they've managed to be able to do. The reality is this is a fundamental transformation about how people think about work. And so the idea or concept that you can do that organization wide, I think is unrealistic from a change management perspective, from a buy-in and actually getting the ROI and the amount of work that it would take to achieve that. So I would say this is a role by role, person by person, department by department kind of exercise, and I think the reality is this needs to be led by the business.

This needs to be the business leaders who are looking for those productivity gains, who are recognizing that they have work that needs to be completed. If they're going to achieve their goals, they need this to work, and to really get behind it and go, "This is now the way that we are going to look to operate," because it is a fundamental shift. You do need to get quite a lot of buy-in from people and just recognize that this is also not an overnight change. You are going to have people who are much more resistant than others and it's going to take time. But I think once people start to see the results of this, then hopefully the kind of ripple effect will happen and then it will spread throughout the organization. But it's definitely not a quick fix and not something where you can just snap your fingers and it's done. It is going to take time, and my recommendation is definitely to start small.

Bruce Morton: So as a change management guru, you'll truly understand the value of the size of the prize. If you're going to get through a change, what is the so what and the North Star? So for those organizations that were helping on this journey, what are some of those visionary North Star, the carrot, the benefits they're going to get by going on this journey?

Cat Halliwell: I think that for me, the biggest thing is around productivity. And that's from a number of different avenues, but knowing that you are getting the work done in the most appropriate way by the right person. The productivity gains that you get from that from an output perspective, but also the cost savings that are linked.

I often talk about workforce utilization as you know, Bruce. And there is a big piece within organizations, there are people who have capacity that is not being utilized right now by organizations, and that's because they don't necessarily know that they have them. They don't have access to them, they don't have the same way of talking about it from a skills taxonomy perspective. And so being able to break it down and go, "Right, there are some tasks here that could be completed by one of our internal employees at no additional cost," and actually just maximizing the kind of ROI on that individual employee, that's a huge kind of benefit.

I think the other big thing is we know we live in a talent-scarce world right now, and it's only going to get worse. So being able to open talent pools rather than looking for someone who's done the exact same thing for X many years. Being able to find someone who has the skills, and it's not just around the skills, because it's the skills, and it's the competencies. Sometimes it's education. Sometimes it's experience. We're not saying that all of that's discounted. What we're saying is that actually, there are multiple different levels and for some roles it's going to be more important than others. But by having this open talent pool, you’re able to achieve things on a much broader scale than potentially you would do previously.

And then I think that the final thing I would say, just because I know we are short on time, otherwise I could go on for quite some time, is really around the equitable playing field that it creates for people. When you are looking at breaking down the work, matching the tasks to skills and being more open-minded, what it actually does is it creates a much more equitable, I'm going to have to use the word again, experience for workers. So you're able to increase the representation of diverse and underrepresented groups who may have faced barriers to education, may have not been able to apply their skills in a specific type of environment, but it doesn't mean that they can't and doesn't mean that they're not highly skilled in those things. So I think it's all of those things together plus a plethora of others that I could talk about for quite some time, but I won't.

Bruce Morton: I love that because that objectivity actually takes away the bias, so that's a great point. So I'm sure you get asked this question a lot, but is role deconstruction applicable to every role?

Cat Halliwell: So this is something that I've had a number of conversations around, because I think that there is the natural inclination to say, "Well, actually, it doesn't work for this group or it doesn't work for this group." But we often talk about building a success profile. And what we do there is try and look at if we were to build a success profile with four quadrants, I talked about not discounting other things, you've got the skills in there, you've got your experience and qualifications. We're not getting rid of competencies, but actually also allowing for cultural fit. What that actually allows you to do is for every role to be hired in a comprehensive and balanced way, but recognizes that there are variances. So for example, a success profile that was for a lawyer or an accountant may have a higher weighting related to experience and qualifications, whereas an entry level role, which could have more of a focus on the skills and cultural fit.

And what this allows you to do is take a unified approach but recognize the unique requirements that may exist. And so really what it allows you to do, just like I mentioned earlier, is it allows business leaders to really adjust the weightings that they have on those kinds of quadrants to match their requirements. And like I said, it does mirror how organizations use job descriptions today, so there'll be a baseline description and then the individual leaders will tailor it to match whatever their business needs are. This kind of approach is the same way. What it does is it gives you the guidelines, but then it allows leaders to tailor their individual success profiles with the specific guidelines to make sure that they're getting their individual needs for their individual roles met.

Bruce Morton: Right, makes sense. Okay, great. Well, thank you for that. As you say, we could talk for hours…

Cat Halliwell: We could.

Bruce Morton: ...but it is a podcast, so let's wrap it up with our final question that we love, is the crystal ball question. As we look to the future, how is this concept that you've talked about today, how's that going to impact the future of the work?

Cat Halliwell: When I think about the future, I think the future is characterized by things like flexibility, adaptability and continuous learning. When you look at the way that the world is changing, employment types are becoming much more diversified. Traditional full-time roles that have been around for a long time are now coexisting with part-time, freelance, gig opportunities, all of those kind of things, and I think that will continue. As we look, I mentioned workforce utilization already, but I think that's going to be crucial. I'm hoping that we will get to a point where there is advanced analytics and AI-driven tools where it allows us to be more effective at the workforce planning, workforce strategy that's kind of ever-elusive as it is today, but actually being able to deploy the humans effectively. Balancing workloads, optimizing the team compositions, and making sure that we're matching the skills with the tasks just to reduce that kind of workforce latency.

I think there is going to be more deconstruction of jobs from traditional roles to allow organizations more flexibility in how they allocate their resources, and I think in time, it will take time because the infrastructure change that's needed. I think workers will engage in cross-functional teams where their skills can be leveraged by multiple areas and drive that innovation and maximize the potential. And all that being said, I think skills will become a core part of recruitment processes, so shifting away from the traditional qualifications and degrees and experience and focus on the skills and the potential that candidates bring.

Things like digital literacy and problem-solving and abilities and all of those soft skills with the rise of the AI and tech will become a huge focus, I think, for most organizations. And then I think the kind of upskilling and reskilling is going to have to become a key focus too. If you look at the rate of change of skills and technologies and everything that exists for people to get work done, that is changing so rapidly that people are going to have to keep up with the change. And that's not going to happen if there isn't a really intentional focus on upskilling and reskilling. But you can only know how to do that when you know what skills your current workforce has, so skills mapping as well.

Bruce Morton: Awesome. Well, there's a lot.

Cat Halliwell: There's a lot.

Bruce Morton: We've taken on a big meaty subject today, and I really appreciate you getting this very practical and tactical for people to take an action plan from this. But of course, we've only really scratched the surface, so people that are interested in this space, how can they find more about the work that you are doing?

Cat Halliwell: Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love to have conversations on this topic, so I'm more than happy to talk through. There's also a number of workshops that we host and things like that, so reach out, ask whatever questions you've got, have whatever conversations you've got. I'm more than happy to oblige.

Bruce Morton: Excellent. Cat Halliwell, thank you so much for your time today. Been a great conversation.

Cat Halliwell: Thanks for having me, Bruce.

Bruce Morton: If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have questions, send them to SubjectToTalent@AllegisGlobalSolutions.com. Follow us on LinkedIn with the #SubjectToTalent and learn more about AGS at AllegisGlobalSolutions.com, where you can find additional workforce insights and past episodes. Until next time, cheers.