Adjacent skills: Their role in building skills-first organizations

What do you think is the best way to reduce the skills gap?

Well, no doubt, we can say that hiring new employees whenever there is a skills shortage isn’t the best way out.

Primarily because it is expensive, and secondly, there is no inexhaustive pool of talent available where recruiters can pick and choose as needed.

So, the best way to bridge this gap is to rely on skill adjacencies and transform your I-shaped employees into T-shaped ones.

Confused about what those are?

I-shaped people are those who have expertise in a single field. On the other hand, T-shaped people are specialists in many areas. They are poly-skilled and can wear different hats at a time.

As Sriram Narayan explains in his work Agile IT Organization Design, a T-shaped employee, who is a tester, can be an analyst and even a stakeholder manager.

In today’s world, with tectonic shifts happening in the realms of skills and technology, employees have to be versatile, flexible, and poly-skilled, aka have adjacent skills to stay job-fit.

Similarly, due to a possible fourth industrial revolution, how we approach hiring is changing. Therefore, employers and HR professionals must bring skill adjacencies to the spotlight and recruit based on skills, not just roles.

By keeping these things in mind, let’s now explore examples and the role these skills play in building skills-first organizations.

What are adjacent skills?

It refer to skills connected or related to other skills. They can be an amalgam of technical and transferrable skills. In most cases, these skills won’t be focal within a candidate’s or employee’s job role. They would be a secondary field of knowledge that can act as stepping stones in helping them advance in their career.

“People with the skills necessary to perform a role’s duties may never have held that specific role or a position with that specific title,” said Lindsey Walsh, VP of Gartner. Walsh also added that roles are essentially bags of skills.

To close skills gaps, HR professionals will need to identify critical capabilities and related strengths rather than only searching for candidates who have performed the exact same job role.

Transforming skills and technology: How to overcome skills shortage with adjacent skills

Since skills are changing rapidly with the takeover of technology such as machine learning, automation, artificial intelligence, and so forth, several job roles are on the verge of extinction.  

For instance, as per the report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, several job positions are declining extensively in the U.S. Let's have a look at some of them:  

• The number of word processors and typists in 2021 was 8.6 thousand, which is expected to be 5.6 thousand by 2031.  
• In 2021, the number of executive secretaries was 508 thousand, which could decrease to 405.4 thousand by 2031.  
• The number of telephone operators in 2021 was four thousand, which might reduce to three thousand by 2031.  
• In 2021, the number of telemarketers was 115.7 thousand; in 2031, it is expected to become 405.4 thousand.  

And these are just a handful of examples from a wide, wide pool. The scenario continues to change with the disruptions happening around us.

But does this mean that these employees have to be laid off?

Or will it increase the unemployment rate drastically?  

It won't.

Provided your organization identifies these employees' related skills, conducts effective reskilling/upskilling programs, and offers them opportunities for talent mobility.  

One such example is available in the arena of customer service. With the increased adoption of chatbots, there is a decrease in the demand for customer service executives. Customer service as the primary skill has related skills like communication, collaboration, and problem-solving. These skills are also important for sales skills. Therefore, you can equip customer service employees for sales-related tasks within your organization by building sales-related skills on the foundational skills of customer service.

The emergence of new skills and how they can resolve the skills gap within the same domain and other domains is worth considering.

Along with skills and job roles becoming obsolete, several thousand new skills and job roles are emerging every quarter. Because of this, several organizations are finding it a challenge to hire employees with new-age skills like blockchain, AWS, NLP, etc. Besides, most companies are competing to hire for the same skill sets.    

As per a report from Gartner published in 2018, 90% of S&P organizations were hiring for the same 39 critical roles, including software developers, data scientists, and marketing managers, at the same time. They accounted for 49% of job postings during that time.    

Organizations can overcome these hiring concerns if they leverage skill adjacencies efficiently. Since skills are related to each other as they form part of the skill universe, considering skill-based experience over role-based experience can be highly beneficial. One of the best examples is put forward by Gartner concerning NLP.    

According to Gartner, finding employees/ candidates skilled in NLP can take time and effort. However, you can find employees skilled in Python, Machine Language, TensorFlow, NLTK, and sentiment analysis.

Since these skills are adjacent to NLP, you can always upskill employees/ candidates with these skill sets in NLP. Through this, you can bridge the skills gap easily.    

Apart from mobility within the same domain, an organization can develop NLP skills in people from another domain.

For instance, you can train people from the marketing department and equip them to handle NLP. It is because social listening skill is vital for sentimental analysis (an adjacent skill of NLP) and marketing. Based on this adjacency, organizations can initiate upskilling/cross-skilling initiatives to build NLP skills in employees professed in marketing.

iMocha’s AI-powered Skills Inference delivers automated, real-time skill validation from multiple sources, including resumes, projects, LMS, and certifications, enabling data-driven talent strategies at scale.

How adjacent skills help build skills-first organizations

To stay relevant and attain sustainable business growth, your organization must move forward considering the market trends. Among them, one crucial factor is having employees equipped with skills suitable for achieving business goals and strategies. Your organization can do so by making the best out of skills adjacencies.

The Role of Adjacent Skills in Building a Skills-First Organization

1. Reduce skills gaps

Nowadays, finding employees with the same skill sets, aligning with your company's business goals and plans, can be challenging. Along with this, the rapid changes happening in the skills universe are making things worse.

Therefore, to lower the skills gap in your company, you can explore skill adjacencies within your employees and train them to take up other opportunities.  

2. Open up opportunities for talent mobility  

While prioritizing skills adjacencies, you can explore the possibilities opened up by talent or internal mobility. For instance, consider that your company has several openings for technical writers. If you have employees highly skilled in coding and keen on writing, they could take up upskilling/ cross-skilling as coding is an adjacent technical writing skill.

You can bring in internal/talent mobility within your organization. This can happen when the tables turn as well. Thus, you can bring in talent mobility within a single department. It could be interdepartmental too.

Explore the top 8 internal recruitment software to enhance workforce capabilities and boost internal mobility.

3. Lower costs in the long run

Recruitment is one of the many viable solutions available whenever there is a talent shortage. Even with recruitment, finding the right talent is a challenging task. Similarly, the costs per hire are also increasing tremendously, especially with the rise in internal and external recruitment costs.

Internal recruitment costs include compliance, administration, training, development, etc. External recruitment costs include background checks, pre-screening, travel, and marketing expenses.

Therefore, instead of considering hiring employees whenever there is a skills gap, you can look for skills adjacencies by relying on a skills intelligence platform. A skills intelligence platform with up-to-date skills inventory and taxonomy can help identify skills adjacencies.

Based on this, you can initiate upskilling/cross-skilling initiatives. You can improve talent mobility, employee performance, engagement, and retention and lower costs incurred in the long run.

4. Increase learning and development opportunities

L&D activities are essential in building a future-ready organization. But there is a catch. Conducting upskilling/reskilling programs without any clarity can do more harm than benefit your organization. Through these activities, efforts would get wasted, new skills acquired would be redundant, and without any practical application, they could wither.

Therefore, before organizing any L&D activities, it is best to ensure that they align with your company's business goals and your employees' career trajectories. Most importantly, keeping your eyes open for related capabilities can also increase the scope of L&D activities you can conduct in your company.

5. Help with workforce planning

Regardless of the size of your organization, conducting workforce planning can be a highly fruitful exercise in building a skills-first company. As part of this initiative, the first step is to understand your organization's key goals and future objectives. You will also have to ensure that your employees align with them.

Exploring skill adjacencies and taking the required measures can be helpful for that purpose. You will also have to consider the changes to your current workforce in the coming years. In this case, these skills can also play a strategic role while performing workforce planning.

Identifying Adjacent Skills in Your Workforce

• ‍Start with mapping: Catalog the current strengths of your workforce to create a baseline understanding across roles and functions.‍
• Leverage competency frameworks: Use established taxonomies or models to see how one capability connects to another. For instance, a software engineer proficient in Java might expand into Kotlin or Spring Boot.‍
• Use assessments for validation: Structured assessments help confirm proficiency levels and highlight growth areas, making it easier to spot logical next skills.‍
• Apply analytics and AI: Advanced tools can examine job roles, performance data, and industry trends to recommend the most relevant development areas.‍
• Cluster into pathways: Group related capabilities into clear progressions, such as Data Analysis → Data Visualization → Business Intelligence. This gives employees structured growth options.‍
• Collaborate with managers and employees: Managers can highlight growth opportunities while employees are encouraged to explore new responsibilities that build on their strengths.‍
• Continuously update the map: As industries evolve, related skills shift too. Regularly reviewing and refreshing your workforce map ensures it stays accurate and future-ready.

How to Build Adjacent Skills in Your Organization

Step 1: Assess existing skills

Begin with a comprehensive evaluation of the current capabilities across your workforce. Use assessments, manager feedback, and project outcomes to create a clear baseline inventory.

Step 2: Identify related skill clusters

Map each role’s core strengths to areas that can be developed with minimal learning curves. For example, a cybersecurity professional might explore cloud security, compliance frameworks, and DevSecOps.

Step 3: Create targeted learning pathways

Design role-based learning journeys that encourage employees to build on their existing expertise. Combine formal training such as courses or certifications with practical learning through projects and mentoring.

Step 4: Enable cross-functional exposure

Encourage employees to take part in short-term projects beyond their primary role. Hands-on exposure often speeds up development in related areas.

Step 5: Track progress with intelligence tools

Use analytics and ongoing assessments to measure adoption and improvement. Regular tracking helps employees stay aligned with their growth path.

Step 6: Align development to business goals

Link growth initiatives to organizational priorities like digital transformation, innovation, or expansion. This ensures the effort contributes directly to measurable impact.

Step 7: Foster a learning culture

Acknowledge and reward employees who actively work on new capabilities. Promote curiosity, experimentation, and continuous growth as part of everyday work life.

Final thoughts

In short, every organization is searching for purple unicorns, aka candidates with various skills and expertise. But they are rare to find, unattainable, and often mythical. But you can always consider upskilling as an option to create these talents.

However, this, in no way, means that your organization has to give up on the aspiration to build a future-ready organization with skill-fit employees. You can still achieve it by making the best out of skills adjacencies, conducting effective upskilling/reskilling programs, analyzing and measuring employee performance, and so forth.

FAQs

How do organizations benefit from focusing on adjacent skills?

Organizations benefit by closing talent gaps more quickly through internal upskilling rather than relying only on hiring. Internal mobility helps employees move into new roles with ease. This makes the workforce more adaptable to changing technologies and business needs, while reducing recruitment costs. In addition, employees who see clear growth opportunities through skill development are more engaged and likely to stay longer.

How can employees identify their adjacent skills?

Employees can start by reviewing their current strengths and looking at related skills that naturally build on them. For example, someone skilled in data analysis might explore visualization or business intelligence tools. Job descriptions for desired roles can highlight useful adjacencies, while assessments provide clarity on both strengths and growth areas. Guidance from managers and insights from AI-powered tools also make it easier to see which skills to pursue next.

What are challenges in developing adjacent skills?

The main challenges include lack of visibility into current skills, limited access to training resources, and hesitation from employees to step outside their comfort zones. Organizations also find it difficult to measure progress without reliable assessments, and adjacencies themselves can shift as industries evolve. Addressing these issues requires better skill mapping, continuous learning opportunities, and a culture that encourages growth.

References

1. CFI (2022, December 7). T-Shaped Skills. Corporate Finance Institute.
2. Narayan, S. Agile IT Organization Design: For Digital Transformation and Continuous Delivery (1st ed.).
3. Wiles, J. (2020, January 23). Trouble Finding Critical Skills? Widen Your Views.
4. Gartner (n.d.). Do More With Data to Close Critical Skill Gaps.
5. Gurchiek, K. (2021, March 5). Address Skills Gap by Identifying 'Skill Adjacencies'.
6. (2022, July 11). 15 In-Demand Tech-Focused (And Tech-Adjacent) Skills And Specialties.
7. Shirani, A. (2018). UPSKILLING AND RETRAINING IN DATA ANALYTICS: A SKILL-ADJACENCY ANALYSIS FOR CAREER PATHS. Issues in Information Systems, 20(4), 65-74.
8. Ramamurthy, K. N., Singh, M., Davis, M., Kevern, J. A., Klein, U., & Peran, M. (n.d.). Identifying Employees for Re-skilling Using an Analytics-Based Approach. IEEE Explore.
9. Heins, J. (n.d.). Fastest Declining Occupations.