How Will You Help the People Who Got Your Company “Here” Get to Its New “There”?
ALIGN Practice: Grow
Before Ingka Group, IKEA's largest retailer, scaled AI tools across its workforce, it trained its people first, roughly 30,000 co-workers and about 500 senior leaders, specifically on how to use the technology responsibly and support their teams through the change. Leadership went first, deliberately, so they could guide their people through what came next. Explaining this decision, Ulrika Biesèrt, Chief People and Culture Officer said “People have been at the heart of the company for over eighty years, and that is exactly where they’ll stay.”
When your organization shifts direction, what happens to the longtime, well-performing employee who had the skills you needed to bring the organization this far, but doesn't have the skills for what comes next? Far from hypothetical, this is a question leaders face whenever strategy shifts, whether that means entering a new market, restructuring around a new priority, or adopting a technology that changes what the work requires.
That question touches strategy, culture, and execution all at once:
Has the organization been reading the signals closely enough to understand its current and future capacity needs?
Is the organization's treatment of its employees consistent with its stated values?
Does the organization provide the time, budget, and structure for ongoing development and upskilling to meet the evolving needs of the roles?
Some organizations treat a pivot as an opportunity to reduce cost, moving on from employees whose experience comes with a higher salary, or whose tenure comes with a stronger voice.
Other organizations approach the same pivot differently. They recognize that the employee helped get them here, and that recognition creates a sense of reciprocity. The instinct becomes: we got here together, so let's invest in getting you to where the organization needs to go next.
In a fast-moving environment, leadership needs an accurate, current picture of what the organization can do now and what it will need next. Capability checks belong in the regular rhythm of planning, so gaps show up while there is still time to close them.
Within the ALIGN method, that work starts during Integrate, when leadership brings in staff and managers to translate priorities into everyday operations, through cross-functional conversations that cover both technical proficiency and the judgment, communication, and collaboration skills a role increasingly requires. That is the natural moment to ask: what skills, knowledge, tools, and capabilities do we already have, and what will this work actually require?
A skills gap identified at that stage can be addressed with training and support, while the person still has time to grow into what the role now needs. A skills gap identified only after execution is underway, once there is pressure to perform to new standards immediately, often leaves neither the time nor the willingness to develop that person. While there are times when bringing in outside expertise for a genuinely new capability is the right call, far more often the smarter use of company resources is investing in the people already within the organization.
Replacing an employee typically costs 50 to 200 percent of that person's annual salary once recruiting, onboarding, and lost productivity are factored in, and the cost climbs higher for senior or specialized roles. For companies concerned that development spending might lead an employee to leave, the more pressing question is what it costs to have that employee stay without it: stalled performance, disengagement, and a growing gap between what the role now requires and what the person was ever given the chance to learn.
Investing in staff takes different forms depending on what the moment requires:
Formal training on a new tool or process
Coaching, one-on-one support that builds judgment rather than a specific skill
A stretch assignment or cross-functional project that lets someone grow into a capability before their role formally requires it
Mentoring or tuition support
Reallocating workload so an employee has adequate time on the job to learn something new
In ALIGN℠, this is the work of Grow. Progress endures when leaders and teams expand their capacity, through coaching, training, and the kind of resilience-building that gives people the tools and confidence they need as the work evolves.
Statement #8 in the ALIGNment Snapshot reads:
Our staff are given the time, resources, and support they need to build or strengthen the skills their roles require.
The ALIGNment Snapshot is a ten-minute reflection tool that helps leaders see where strategy, culture, and execution are working together, and where closer attention is needed. Complete the snapshot online, and you will receive your results with recommendations to achieve greater alignment across the three pillars of effective organizations.