Help your organization activate the hidden skills & knowledge already within its people.

Most HR systems manage employees by job title. Helios helps you discover them by capability.

Traditional HR tools are great for tracking roles and reporting lines, but they rarely reveal the full range of skills and expertise already inside your workforce. As organizations move from job-based models toward skills-based ones, the need for deeper visibility and connection has never been greater.

Helios closes that gap by surfacing hidden skills, connecting the right people, and helping you activate internal expertise at scale. In short:

• A job-based talent model asks, “What role does this person hold?”
• A skills-based talent model asks, “What can this person actually do, what could they grow into, and where else could those capabilities create value?”

Discover what your teams can really do. Contact Helios to unlock the hidden talent within your organization.

Hidden Expertise Inside Organizations

Most organizations have more expertise within their workforce than their systems can see. Research from Deloitte, LinkedIn, McKinsey, and the broader skills-tech market shows that companies are shifting toward skills-based talent models, but many still lack the taxonomy, visibility, and internal discovery tools needed to surface hidden skills and activate expertise at scale. Helios is built to close that gap.

The Visibility Gap in Workforce Capabilities

Deloitte found that only 10% of HR executives effectively classify and organize skills into a usable framework, even though 85% have skills initiatives underway. Many organizations still do not know what skills their employees have, often relying on self-reported data. This lack of visibility makes it difficult to connect people’s real capabilities with opportunities, learning, and career growth.

From Job-Based Models to Skills-Based Models

Traditional job-based systems reinforce the problem by centering on titles and departments rather than capabilities. Skills-based models flip that approach, treating skills as the core unit of talent visibility and decision-making. They enable more agile workforce planning, mobility, and alignment between learning and business needs. Deloitte describes this shift as moving from fixed job hierarchies to a dynamic landscape of skills.

Why This Shift Matters

LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report underscores why this transformation matters. Helping employees develop their careers rose from No. 9 to No. 4 among L&D priorities within a year. Ninety percent of organizations cite retention as a concern, and learning opportunities are now the top strategy for keeping talent. Companies with stronger learning cultures see higher retention and internal mobility, proving the value of better skills visibility.

Market Response and Emerging Solutions

The market response reflects this need. Workday’s Skills Cloud and other HCM systems now use AI to infer and suggest skills employees may not list explicitly. McKinsey highlights the underlying operational challenge: when organizations are structured around fixed roles, “work is not flowing to skills, and skills are not flowing to work.” Helios helps enterprises overcome that structural limitation by revealing hidden expertise, connecting people intelligently, and activating more of the knowledge already inside the business.

Redefining the Operating Model

McKinsey makes the operating-model issue even clearer: when organizations are structured primarily around job descriptions and hierarchies, “work is not flowing to skills, and skills are not flowing to work.” In other words, the problem is not just incomplete employee data. It is that the underlying model of work itself often hides adjacent skills, practical know-how, and expertise outside formal roles.

Comparing Job-Based vs. Skills-Based Models

A simple way to explain the difference is this:

• A job-based talent model asks, “What role does this person hold?”
• A skills-based talent model asks, “What can this person actually do, what could they grow into, and where else could those capabilities create value?”

In practice, job-based models are usually better at administration and control. They are strong at tracking headcount, reporting structures, job families, and standardized processes. Skills-based models are better at discovery and agility. They are designed to uncover hidden expertise, improve internal mobility, support reskilling, and connect people to projects, roles, learning, and opportunities based on capabilities rather than just titles.

References:

• Deloitte - “The skills-based organization: A new operating model for work and the workforce”
  Best source for the shift from job-based to skills-based talent models, including the finding that 85% of HR executives had skills efforts underway while only 10% said they effectively classify and organize skills into a taxonomy or framework.
• LinkedIn Learning - “Workplace Learning Report 2024”
  Strong source for the business case around career development, retention, learning priorities, and the growing need for better visibility into employee growth and skills.
• Workday - “Skills Cloud”
  Useful source to support the point that major HCM platforms are now emphasizing AI-driven skills discovery, including language about suggesting skills people “might not know they have.”
• McKinsey - “Taking a skills-based approach to building the future workforce”
  Good supporting source for why organizations are moving toward skills-based workforce models and how that expands talent visibility and flexibility.
• McKinsey - “Leading a skills-based transformation powered by AI”
  Useful as a more current executive-level perspective on skills-based transformation and AI-enabled workforce discovery.

Traditional HR systems do a great job tracking roles and records, but they often miss the real expertise hidden inside your workforce. Helios uncovers those skills, maps connections, and helps you activate the talent you already have.

If you’re ready to move beyond job titles and build a truly skills-based organization, contact Helios to see how we can help transform your talent visibility and performance.