Orange needs no introduction. The telecommunications giant operates in 26 countries and has 287 million customers around the globe. With 136,000 employees worldwide the company needs a solid learning and development infrastructure to stay ahead. That’s why they turned to DevSkiller.

Implementing a talent management process

With so many employees in the ranks at Orange comes the problem of how to manage them effectively. Such a huge number of employees requires a detailed talent management process. Large-scale talent management is not easy beyond a superficial basis. Without effective learning and development strategies, how do you really know how skilled your employees are?

Skills development is key in the modern age. Traditional job roles are giving way to whoever possesses the right skills for the task at hand. Something which isn’t obvious without effective skills management.

“Skills are the new currency. As technology continues to reshape industries, individuals, and organizations must prioritize skills development to stay competitive in the digital age.”

Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook

Orange realized this early on and set about implementing a clear roadmap for talent progression. With the implementation of DevSkiller TalentBoost, Orange was able to lay out a detailed roadmap for employee development. Meaning, employee progression is based not on personal bias but on skills acquisition and the objective realization of strategic goals.

“The aim of our skills management project is to provide the skills needed to deliver on our digital skills strategy. By doing so, we want to maximize the potential of our employees, as well as increase their job and development satisfaction.”

Zuzanna Woźniak, Manager of training implementation and Digitalisation Department at Orange

TalentBoost talent management assessments

DevSkiller TalentBoost offers organizations like Orange a detailed skills ontology to better manage their business. TalentBoost was built from years of data collected from over 600,000 individual skill profiles. This allows organizations to be able to accurately pinpoint exact areas for development within their workforce.

A skills taxonomy provides a hierarchical structure of grouping skills together within specific skill sets. This approach is somewhat limited in the modern, rapidly advancing world. Often skills development crosses over from one skill set to another. Practical organization of skills then,  requires a flexible, ontological approach to skills management.

For instance, to use a popular culture reference from the world of sports, in 1994 basketball legend Michael Jordan signed for the Chicago Red Sox to play baseball for a season. This was possible because it was realized that many of the skills he had acquired in his professional basketball career, such as ball control and rapid reaction time, were transferable to baseball.

Similarly, in a taxonomical way of organizing skills, the two sports would be grouped as completely different skill sets with no cross-over. Whereas, with an ontological structure, roles are divided into the relevant individual skills (ball control, rapid reaction time) that make up a role. In this way it becomes simple to identify employees from different sectors, whose skills can easily transfer to other roles; boosting internal mobility.

What does TalentBoost bring to Orange?

DevSkiller TalentBoost is a big part of the employee development strategy at Orange. Originally, the organization was looking to use TalentBoost assessments on only around 200 employees. However, once the advanced talent management platform’s capabilities were realized, this was soon extended to over 800 employees.

“When we were getting started with TalentBoost, we were planning to test it out with 200 employees. However, after showing the platform, so many were interested in joining the pilot that we’ve finally increased it by 4x.” – Anna Gott, Culture Change Manager at Orange

Personalized career paths

Implementing a robust talent management solution like TalentBoost, allowed Orange to create personalized development paths for its employees. Providing a clear, tailored roadmap for development helps each employee to feel like their personal development is important to the company’s overall goals. It allows employees to master current skills and adapt as new skills come into focus.

Design goal-specific learning initiatives

Traditional employee development plans are out of sync with the rapid development of technology, and digital skills are not being acquired quickly enough.

“1.1 billion jobs are liable to be radically transformed by technology in the next decade …if current trends continue, outdated learning programmes will further exacerbate the skills mismatch in the future.”

World Economic forum

However, the implementation of advanced talent management means that learning and development no longer have to be an arbitrary process. Orange is able to present it employees with specific learning goals catered to their own personal development. With TalentBoost, it is possible to identify the specific skills which an employee is lacking and create a strategic plan for how those skills can be acquired. In this way, Orange can align its company goals, with the development of its employees and be assured that the two are progressing in unison.

Enhanced internal mobility

“50% of all employees will need reskilling by 2025, as adoption of technology increases.”

World Economic Forum

The difficulty of external recruitment in the tech industry can be solved with internal recruitment. As job roles digitize and old skills become obsolete, there is a need to develop employees and reskill them for new positions. In this way organizations can utilize those employees already within the company; maintaining stability in the workforce and retaining the company’s core values.

Companies like Orange are able to keep past employees engaged through enticing upskilling and reskilling programs. Through the use of TalentBoost, opportunities for progression are tangible and achievable, based on the acquisition of certain specific skills, that are integral to that future position.

TalentBoost allows Orange a 360° view of its employees’ skills and lays out the route by which they can adapt their skillsets, in order to evolve with advancing technology.

Diagnose and close skill gaps

The ability to break down roles into individual skills, allows Orange to easily identify gaps that appear within these roles. Whenever there are skills gaps, the employee with the most similar skills to that which is missing can be easily identified and work can begin immediately on creating a strategic development plan for that employee to learn the skills that it is missing.

The results of implementing TalentBoost for Orange

Thanks to TalentBoost, Orange has a platform where it can assess the skills of its employees in an average of only 13 minutes. This rapid ability to be able to assess in detail, the skills of Orange’s entire workforce, allows the company the ability to easily map out skill sets and quickly identify skills gaps.

Furthermore, employees at Orange have embraced the shift to skills-based working. This is reflected in employee development, where, of those employees implemented into the TaentBoost platform, the average completion rate is 95%.

This demonstrates that Orange’s approach to development is resonating with employees, and they are, overwhelmingly, embracing the chance to develop their skills.

How TalentBoost affects the entire Orange organization and its parts

With TalentBoost, managers at Orange now have a tool that allows them access to the advanced skills data of their employees. This allows for making strategic, data-driven decisions, that are not based on subjectivity, but on objective data.

The approach to skills learning is flexible. Meaning that as new skills emerge, the learning of these skills can be easily incorporated into the existing learning plans of employees.

Focus on employee development paths increases employee satisfaction and gives workers a new lease of life, boosting employee retention levels, as well as worker morale. Maintaining a solid workforce of existing staff, year-over-year, allows for your organization’s core values to be ever-present and passed on to new hires. A high rate of employee retention promotes the image of a satisfied workforce. All of which help your employee brand.

Summary

“The future belongs to those who are dedicated to constant improvement and skill development.”

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft

The skills-based working model is the answer to the continuing success of organizations, like Orange, that wish to survive in the ever-changing technological world. Effective talent management is the only way to properly ensure your employees are keeping up to date with the latest advancements in technology and developing their skills accordingly.

Learn about how DevSkiller TalentBoost can help prepare your organization for the future.