Training plans, Upskilling platforms, sophisticated taxonomies … HR services have never been so well equipped. And yet, the real results on the ground are of remarkable consistency: notant.
Executive committees validate seven -digit budgets to deploy “skills initiatives” as modern as it is in the afficances. LMS LMS platforms are integrated into the HRSHs, skills frameworks circulate in offices, workshops on the future of work are linked. But when the company faces a change of market, a strategic turn or a crisis, the teams remain rigid, internal mobility is struggling, and the business observes, perplexed, this HR show without impact.
The explanation is simple: Companies confuse a plan with a strategy.
When the PowerPoint replaces thought
A skills plan is comfortable. It is measurable, documented, presentable in committee. We line up columns: taxonomies, business standards, training catalogs, completion rate. We add a touch of AI, a layer of gamification, some HR indicators. The whole thing gives an impression of master’s degree.
But no one wonders about the initial problem. Why this plan? To answer what issue? What tangible results are expected? And above all, what will it really change in the way the work is done on a daily basis?
Spoiler: Nothing.
A flip -flop marathon
The comparison is brutal, but exact. Buying a training platform without a strategy is like preparing for a marathon by buying overpriced shoes … without ever running a single kilometer.
Companies want the effect without the cause, the result without the process, the impact without the strategy. They invest in the tool, but not in transformation. They celebrate the launch of a training program, but ignore that the completion rate has never produced a usable skill.
A strategy, a real
A strategy begins with a clear definition of the problem:
- Lack of team’s responsiveness to market transformations?
- Lack of internal mobility?
- Difficulty bringing in internal critical skills?
Then it sets a specific, measurable objective, aligned with business issues. From there, it deploys a logical sequence: identification of key skills, analysis of differences, targeted actions, integration into HR and managerial decisions.
A plan without this architecture is a catalog. An expensive distraction.
📌 Plan vs. Strategy: the reality test
| 🔍 Analyze element | ✅ Skills strategy | 🚫 disguised HR plan |
|---|---|---|
| Initial objective | Solve an identified business problem | Delive a HR deliverable “in time” |
| Data used | Business data, project, performance | Standard RH data (participation, presence) |
| Success indicators | Actual mobility, increased performance | Completion rate, number of training followed |
| Integration into business decisions | Strong: Recruitment, Staffing, Mobility | Weak or absent |
| Flexibility of the model | Scalable according to the priorities of the company | Frozen, standardized, rarely updated |
| Observable impact | Transformation of work practices | Internal HR satisfaction |
What a real skills strategy must deliver
- A workforce that adapts : Capable of changing role, assuming a new mission, reacting without panic to a model rupture.
- An exploitable intelligence of skills : Data integrated into recruitment, assignment and development decisions.
- Useful retention : Evolving talents. Otherwise, it is a disguised stagnation.
- A dynamic by skills, not by titles : Post titles are a fiction. The real work is transversal, hybrid.
Five frequent errors of ineffective HR plans
| ❌ frequent error | 🧠 Why it fails | 💡 Strategic alternative |
|---|---|---|
| Implement generic taxonomy | Does not reflect specific business needs | Create a dynamic, project -oriented reference |
| Form a massively targeting | Dilution of the impact | Train on real gaps linked to the strategy |
| Measure the efficiency by participation | Participation ≠ Transformation | Follow mobility, successful transitions |
| Overload the training offer | No more is better | Reduce, prioritize, contextualize |
| Centralize HR decisions without business involvement | Disconnecting real issues | Co-construction HR X Business |
Go from posture to action: what to do, concretely?
Here is what companies take the subject do seriously:
- Create a dynamic skills benchmark, linked to business priorities
- Analyze skills from operational data, not HR
- Integrate the concept of “velocity” of talents in career management
- Measure the impact on performance, not on participation
- Assume the strategic role of the HR function in business choices
Expected results of a real skills strategy
| 🎯 expected strategic result | 🔍 Indicator to follow (useful) |
|---|---|
| Adaptable workforce | % of staff who have changed their role in 12 months |
| Dynamic internal mobility | Lateral or vertical mobility rate |
| Productivity on new projects | Time-to-Productivity (new roles) |
| Active retention of key talents | % of talents promoted or having changed mission |
| Alignment Skills / Business Strategy | % of critical skills covered at 6 months |
| Reduction of staffing time | Average assignment time on strategic projects |
The cost of illusion
The most serious is not that these plans are ineffective. The most serious is that they give the illusion that something is done. Meanwhile, the talents leave the company by frustration, the opportunities are missed, and the general management ends up doubting the utility of HR.
Competence is today The strategic variable competitiveness. Do not treat it as such, it is a control of piloting.
To conclude, HRs do not need more initiatives. They need better. A plan without strategy is an expensive distraction. A strategy without execution is a note of intention.
What is needed is a vision, choices, useful data, and the courage to get out of the HR theater to enter the concrete.
