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Many leaders are rethinking their approach to employee training and upskilling to keep pace with the current talent market. At human capital management software provider Workday, the company is giving workers access to hands-on training by letting them take on gig work.
In 2019, Workday rolled out “gigs,” short-term assignments for employees offered through its career hub platform. The gigs are intended to give employees experience and exposure to different parts of Workday’s business and help them develop and learn new skills or use skills they already have but don’t often flex in their full-time roles. More than 3,500 employees have participated in the program to date.
Employees first input skills they’re interested in learning or expanding into Workday’s career development platform. The career hub then uses machine learning to suggest gigs, posted by either managers or individual contributors, that align with the skills the employee listed on their profile. Employees can apply for the gig or signal their interest on the platform, and whoever posted the gig connects with the employee to see if they’re suitable for the job. If it’s a match and the employee’s manager approves, they can accept the gig.
The amount of time an employee spends on a gig varies. Workers can dedicate just 10% of their time to working on a gig for a two-month project or pursue more substantial projects that make up half of their workload for some time. Employees can apply for opportunities in any function.
“One of the beauties of the program is you can taste a morsel or take a big chunk. There’s a lot of optionality there,” says Ashley Goldsmith, Workday’s chief people officer. “We see that people really like that.”
The program has increased internal mobility at the company and improved employee sentiment around career development, Goldsmith says. In the fiscal year 2022, internal movement was nearly 50% greater for employees who participated in a gig than for those who did not. And of those internal movements, more than one-third were promoted to a higher-level role. Before launching “gigs,” employees who left the company signaled that they were not fulfilling their career growth aspirations or development, Goldsmith says. That’s since changed.
“You are seeing a lot of this paying off by stretching their skills, by trying something new,” says Goldsmith. “This allows people to get their career growth in motion.”
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
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Watercooler
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Kids or careers. Almost three-quarters of a pool of working moms in the U.K. with preschool-aged children told the Fawcett Society, a gender equality charity, that their career development suffered after having children. Nearly half reported turning down a promotion or opportunity because of childcare arrangement concerns. —Orianna Rosa Royle
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