Building a Skills-Powered Organization at Merck – with
Daniel Moser
Competency models aren't new. So what makes the current wave of
skills work different? For Daniel Moser, two things changed: AI
made it possible to identify skills at scale, across thousands of
employees and dozens of languages — and competition made it
necessary, because organizing work purely around fixed jobs no
longer keeps pace.
In this episode, Daniel takes us through Merck's journey: from a
works council idea back in 2015, to a pilot with 2,000
colleagues, to the CEO setting the ambition to become a
skills-powered organization in June 2023. Today more than 80% of
Merck colleagues worldwide have used the MyGrowth platform — and
Daniel is refreshingly clear that the journey has only just
started.
He also shares the mistake he sees most often: companies that ask
employees for their skills before offering them anything in
return. "Nothing happens. The adoption isn't there." Employee
value first, business value second.
In this episode:
• Why skills-based approaches differ from the competency models
of the past
• Merck's timeline: from works council idea to CEO ambition to
global rollout
• Employee value first — and why skills profiles fail when you
skip that step
• AI vs. algorithms: what actually does what in a skills
architecture, and why the knowledge graph matters
• Build or buy? Why Merck went with a strategic vendor
partnership
• Mindset over technology: co-creation with employees, and
turning talent hoarders into talent exporters
• Why a skills project is also a job architecture project — and
how Merck arrived at functional role clusters
• Validating proficiency: five levels, self-assessment, evidence,
and the manager dialogue
• Transparency and data privacy: who can see your skills, and
what you control
• The business case: positive ROI after two years, faster
internal moves, a million-strong external talent pipeline, and
better strategic workforce planning
• Daniel's advice: start small, start with a real business
challenge — and don't start with technology
• How AI will reshape skills management, and why AI
transformation is a skills problem more than a technology one
About the guest: Daniel Moser leads the
end-to-end skills ecosystem program at Merck, where he has driven
the rollout of the MyGrowth talent marketplace to a workforce of
more than 60,000 people worldwide.
#makeHRbetter – the podcast for people who think about HR
strategically and entrepreneurially. Questions, feedback, or
guest suggestions? Reach out on LinkedIn — Daniel is happy to
connect there too.
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