Leaders, managers and workers require a framework for enabling a world where skills are the currency of work.
Leaders, managers and workers require a framework for enabling a world where skills are the currency of work.
As the world navigates the rapid and disruptive effects of AI, climate change, and geopolitical conflicts, the world of work, too, needs to change. Jobs are giving way to skills as the currency of work to ensure a more agile, resilient, and flexible enterprise that cannot just respond but must thrive in the face of these challenges. This pivot from jobs to skills will require us to rethink everything we know about work. Building on his bestselling book Work without Jobs, Ravin Jesuthasan returns, this time with co-author Tanuj Kapilashrami, an international human resources leader, to provide the framework organizations need to thrive in a world demanding perpetual reinvention.
Many business and management books focus on individual skills and competencies, the power of AI to make companies more agile through enabling “internal gigs,” and the societal and policy implications of the external gig economy. The cases in The Skills-Powered Organization, however, discuss how leading companies are reinventing themselves to be skills-based organizations and transforming value for customers, communities, and stakeholders. Jesuthasan and Kapilashrami describe the need for new organizational capabilities like work design and AI-driven resourcing, as well as the need to reinvent current work systems, to realize the agility, productivity, and value-creating potential of an organization where skills are at the center of its operating model.
Providing a step-by step guide for both new and seasoned leaders, this practical and informative book shows just how to future-proof organizations for the post–fourth industrial revolution world.
About the Authors
Ravin Jesuthasan is the global leader of Mercer’s Transformation Services business. He is a recognized global thought leader, futurist and author on the future of work, automation and human capital. He is a regular participant and presenter at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Ravin has been recognized as one of the leading management thinkers by Thinkers 50, one of the top 25 most influential consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine, one of the top 8 future of work influencers by Tech News and one of the top 100 HR influencers by HR Executive every year since 2019.
He is the author of 5 books and over 200 articles on the Future of Work and HR, including 15 for the Harvard Business Review and the Sloan Management Review. His book Work Without Jobs is a Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestseller and was named one of the 10 best business books of 2023.
His latest books are The Skills-Powered Organization: The Journey to the Next Generation Enterprise (MIT Press, 2024) and The Fast Future Blur (Wiley, 2024).
A recognized speaker at major conferences around the world, Ravin is member of the faculty at Caltech and a frequent guest lecturer at universities including Oxford University, Northwestern University, New York University and the University of Southern California. He is a regular contributor to Forbes and is regularly quoted by leading global media including the FT, CNN, CNBC and BBC, The Nikkei (Japan), Les Echoes (France), De Telegraaf (Netherlands), South China Morning Post and Dubai One TV.
Ravin was also an advisor to and featured prominently on PBS’s widely acclaimed documentary series The Future of Work.
Tanuj Kapilashrami
Follow Tanuj
As the Chief Strategy & Talent Officer of Standard Chartered, Tanuj leads the Strategy, HR, Corporate Affairs, Brand & Marketing, Property and Supply Chain teams. Leading at the intersection of corporate strategy, transformation, people and brand, she is responsible for how the Bank develops, executes and communicates its strategy. Prior to taking on this role in 2024, Tanuj was the Bank’s Chief Human Resources Officer.
Tanuj is a Non-Executive Director on the Board of Sainsbury’s PLC and a member of their Nomination and Remuneration Committees. She is also an Associate Non-Executive Director on the Board of NHS England, advising the NHS on their workforce transformation agenda. In addition, Tanuj is a member of the Asia House Board of Trustees, and on the board of Autumn, an integrated digital wealth, health and lifestyle solutions start-up. She has also previously served as a Board member of the UK Financial Services Skills Commission.
Tanuj is a recognised thought-leader on the future of work. She is often featured by leading global media including BBC, The Economist, Financial Times, Bloomberg and in publications such as the Harvard Business Review, on a range of topics, including culture, leadership, inclusion and skills. She is a regular participant at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Tanuj’s first book ‘The Skills-Powered Organization: The Journey to the Next Generation Enterprise (MIT Press, 2024)’ taps into her experience of over two decades across various human resources specialisms.
Prior to joining Standard Chartered in 2017, Tanuj built her career in banking across multiple markets, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, India, and London.
Praise for The Skills-Powered Organization
“The Skills Powered Organization is an important and eye-opening book with the potential to transform the organizations of the future. The authors present a world where, now more than ever, skills-powered organizations foster agility and teamwork across the growing number of areas of expertise that require cross-boundary collaboration.”
Amy C. Edmondson
Novartis Professor of Leadership, Harvard Business School; Author, Right kind of wrong: The science of failing well (Atria 2023).
“The world of work requires a reset. Our traditional beliefs about jobs are being transformed by AI and new ways of working. Jesuthasan and Kapilashrami are our clear-eyed guides for navigating this new world of work and its core building blocks of skills instead of jobs so we can continue to learn, lead and thrive.”
Arianna Huffington
Founder & CEO, Thrive Global
“While many might look to technology and artificial intelligence as the pivotal elements of a next generation retail business, ours is ultimately a people business. For us, it is all about how we bring people and technology together. The skills of our workforce, the ones that define our success today and tomorrow, will be the ultimate determinants of our success in the future. Jesuthasan and Kapilashrami have given us a clear roadmap for keeping the “human” in work.”
Simon Roberts
CEO, Sainsbury’s
“How do organisations grow and thrive in a fast-paced AI and technology driven world? Jesuthasan and Kapilashrami in their new book The Skills Powered Organization take us on a fascinating journey that puts skills, not college degrees, at the Center of the response to this question.”
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Director General of the World Trade Organization
“Client expectations, especially around sustainability, artificial intelligence and technology, continue to evolve rapidly. Skills are increasingly at the centre of our operating model in order to drive the organisational transformation that is required in order to keep pace. This drives the strategic decisions we make about how we align evolving demand signals from our clients with the induction, development and deployment of talent. Ravin and Tanuj have penned a business leader’s guide, backed by strong research, on what the journey towards a skills-powered operating model can look like.”
Bill Winters
Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered Bank
“The move to skills as the currency of work is a fundamental shift that upends the focus of the last century where work has primarily been organized around jobs. Jesuthasan and Kapilashrami are our expert navigators on this challenging journey that has numerous benefits to businesses, workers and society. The Skills-Powered Organization provides a compelling and practical roadmap to leaders on how they can future proof their organizations by adopting a skills-first strategy, and advances thinking on what is set to be one of the most significant shifts in human capital over the next decade.”
David Green
Managing Partner at Insight222, co-author of Excellence in People Analytics, host of the Digital HR Leaders podcast
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