June 11, 2025

Stop Guessing: How J&J Gets Precise About Skills w/ Bas Debbink

36 minutes

Most organizations claim to care about employee development, but upon closer examination, their approach to skills is often vague, subjective, or downright confusing. They might assume people will simply "figure it out" on the job or resort to one-size-fits-all training. If you've ever wondered why your learning investments don’t seem to translate into impact, it might be because you’re still guessing when it comes to skills.

Today, you’ll hear how Johnson & Johnson’s tech organization stopped playing the guessing game. With clear processes to identify, assess, and verify skills, both digital and power skills, they’re not just hoping development happens; they’re engineering it. You'll learn how they use both talent leader insight and AI-driven inference to build a skills-based ecosystem that actually works, without overwhelming employees or managers.

By the end of the conversation, it’s clear this isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about building a practical, scalable system that aligns employee growth with business needs and helps people know, with confidence, exactly what’s next in their development journey.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...

(00:00) Intro.
(02:32) Bas’s career path and transition into L&D.
(05:08) Structure and priorities of J&J’s tech learning organization.
(09:00) How J&J defines, identifies, and verifies critical skills.
(17:34) Messaging, buy-in, and the cultural side of skill building.
(23:47) How AI and tech are reshaping development and learning systems.

Resources & People Mentioned