A Reimagined Learning and Development System Cultivates Talent and Drives Innovation

As it made a pivotal shift toward cutting-edge fields like data science and AI, IndustrialCo* realized it needed to upskill its engineers. At the same time, the company’s double-digit growth demanded an expansion of its workforce to more than double its current size by 2030, despite tight market conditions and talent shortages. Recognizing talent as one of its most critical assets, IndustrialCo committed to becoming a leader in internal learning and development, making this goal one of the three key pillars of its strategic plan. The company’s quest to create a world-class learning and development system required building a core component: a skills ontology, a detailed library that defines, classifies, and maps critical capabilities.

A skills blueprint designed to evolve

While some skills ontologies include hundreds of thousands of skills, IndustrialCo sought a streamlined, continuously updated library. This library needed to be tailored to its business and employee needs while meeting the following criteria:

• Strategically aligned: Each skill should foster the development of key capabilities, while also enabling talent growth and supporting personalized career pathways.
• Owned by the business: Each skill is defined by and for the business and serves as a common language for all key decisions on people.
• Actionable and consistent: Skills should be specific enough to be fully actionable within the organization, while remaining broad enough to ensure consistency across training programs.
• Stable yet adaptable: Skills should be sufficiently stable to form the foundation of training and strategic initiatives, yet dynamic enough to adapt to evolving business needs and global market trends.

Working collaboratively with more than 200 employees and field experts from all business units and regions, we helped identify the skills that met IndustrialCo’s criteria and developed a custom skills ontology. The completed ontology included 1,300 unique skills mapped to 80% of the company’s employees. To ensure its ongoing relevance, we cocreated governance guidelines and annual update protocols, providing a sustainable framework for reskilling and recruitment. A comprehensive skills management system was designed to facilitate meaningful discussions between management and employees on skills development plans. We also partnered to implement the necessary technology infrastructure and established a best-in-class learning system to support continuous skills development. Finally, we left behind a roadmap to integrate the ontology tool into IndustrialCo’s broader talent strategy, ensuring it can support all talent- related workflows.

Once the skills ontology was drafted, it was time to test it in the broader context of the company’s learning and development system. Working together, we launched two pilots with 300 participants, capturing feedback and tracking KPIs, and ultimately updating the ontology to ensure it met users’ needs. The pilots validated the effectiveness of the skills ontology, setting the stage for scaling its use companywide.

Empowering employee growth with a skills ontology at its core

The skills ontology has become more than just a catalog—it provides a shared language to align on roles, capabilities, and training needs. Employees now have a clear understanding of their skill sets, as well as guidance for managing skills gaps and developing new skills to support their internal mobility and advance their careers. For talent professionals, it streamlines hiring and upskilling efforts to ensure the company stays ahead in a rapidly advancing industry. This framework also promotes the preservation and transfer of institutional knowledge, positioning IndustrialCo to achieve its bold aspirations while empowering its growing workforce.