I was speaking with some people yesterday and someone mentioned that the word role was difficult to categorise. The people they work with might have a number of roles and, depending on their activity in the day/week/month, might be all, some, or none of them.

When we’re building our talent pipelines, if we think only in terms of roles, we’ll limit our thinking. If we think in terms of skills, we’re going to start thinking about job design differently.

Recruiting for skills instead of roles shouldn’t be difficult; are we using roles, their profiles, and integrated person specifications to shortcut the process?

All thoughts welcome.