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.
Kommentare (0)
Melde dich an, um einen Kommentar zu schreiben.