The TechWolf Podcast

In this episode of the TechWolf Podcast, recorded live at Workday Rising in San Francisco, Marianne Herrmann (Principal, Skills-Based Hiring Strategy & Enablement at Workday) reveals the real numbers behind a hiring revolution.

Workday didn’t “experiment” with skills-based hiring; they rebuilt hiring around it.
By combining AI-driven insights from TechWolf with behavioral science and relentless business alignment, they cut underperformance by 39% and accelerated ramp-up speed by 14% across key roles.

This conversation goes far beyond HR strategy; it’s about how precision in skills can transform hiring outcomes, productivity, and even patient care.

This special edition of the TechWolf Podcast puts the spotlight on a topic that’s often misunderstood, frequently overlooked, but absolutely foundational: Job Architecture.

Julius sits down with Richard Hanson - former founder of Jobbable and now leading Digital Strategy & Innovation at WTW - for a deep, candid exploration of the frameworks behind workforce transformation.

Whether you’re mapping skills, building a talent marketplace, or launching GenAI pilots, you’ll need a job architecture that doesn’t collapse under the pressure of change.

What you'll learn:

• What job architecture really is and why most people still get it wrong

• How to balance compensation governance with skills strategy

• Why the job architecture is “the body of the car” and skills are the fuel

• The real reason so many organizations get stuck at the starting line

• How to sell the case for architecture investment to your CFO

• Why GenAI job families didn’t exist 18 months ago, and what to do about it

• The role of AI-powered vendors (like TechWolf) in keeping architectures alive

• What a great architecture looks like from scratch - tech, teams & steps

In this episode of The TechWolf Podcast, host Julius Schelstraete speaks with Mikael Wornoo, co-founder of TechWolf and the leader of its US expansion. Calling in from New York, Mikael lays out why skills data alone is no longer enough—and how task-level intelligence is the key to making workforce AI transformation actionable.

From task automation to strategic workforce planning, this episode unpacks the urgent market shift that's uniting HR and business leaders: understanding how AI is disrupting work—and what to do about it. You’ll also get a sneak peek into TechWolf’s newest launch: the Workforce Intelligence Index, a public data tool built on 2 billion job postings and 10 years of labor market data.

If you’re in HR, talent, transformation, or workforce planning, this episode is your cheat sheet for how to lead—not follow—during AI disruption.

🔑 Key Topics & Takeaways

Why workforce planning has changed forever

• From forecasting to modeling AI adoption: With AI affecting every sector, workforce planning isn’t about “what if” anymore—it’s about how fast.

• Tasks bring precision to workforce intelligence: they make AI use cases like augmentation, automation, and role redesign measurable and actionable.

• With tasks, you can finally answer: What’s the impact of AI on our workforce—and how do we respond?

• A first-of-its-kind tool, analyzing how AI is already transforming jobs, tasks, and skills across 1,500 companies.

• Built to help HR and business leaders stop guessing—and start planning with confidence.

In this episode of The TechWolf Podcast, Carolien Sonck, Director of Support Services at the Belgian Government, joins Julius Schelstraete in Ghent to share a remarkable transformation story.

When the COVID-19 crisis exposed a fundamental blind spot in their workforce data, Carolien and her team set out to build something entirely new: a skills-based workforce intelligence system that could support crisis response, mobility, internal consultancy, and national talent planning.

Carolien shares how the journey began with phone calls and spreadsheets and evolved into a real-time skills system now used across multiple departments. She explains how the government is reshaping internal mobility, mapping AI-disrupted roles, and bringing employees and worker councils on board—all with privacy and trust at the center.

This episode is a must-listen for public sector leaders, HR teams, and change-makers looking to build a data-driven workforce strategy—without relying on guesswork.

In this episode, Guillaume Lavoix, Global Skills Intelligence Lead at Sanofi, shares how one of the world’s largest pharma companies is embedding skills at the heart of its transformation. Guillaume explains how Sanofi’s “Skills Power” program emerged from a shifting business strategy: moving toward R&D-driven innovation and AI-enabled drug development.

He details the early steps — from building a global skills taxonomy with over 500 SMEs to piloting employee-driven experiences in career development and learning — and how these moves are preparing Sanofi for workforce automation and new ways of working.

This conversation is essential for HR and business leaders navigating complex transformations while ensuring workforce readiness for the future.

In this episode of the TechWolf Podcast, we travel to Stockholm to meet Cecilia Sandberg, Chief HR Officer, and Dorna Shafiei, VP Talent Management at Atlas Copco Group.

Together, they break down the practical journey of making a 55,000-person industrial tech company skills-enabled, without introducing a new platform or compromising on cultural values.

The conversation covers internal mobility, skills-based hiring, and job architecture transformation. Packed with learnings from the field, this episode offers a blueprint for embedding skills across a decentralized global enterprise.

Cecilia Sandberg is CHRO of Atlas Copco Group, leading strategic people transformation across a decentralized, 70-country industrial organization. Dorna Shafiei is VP Talent Management and a driving force behind the Group’s skills-based talent acquisition and development strategy.

Why do so many companies say they’re going skills-based, but still hire like it’s 2005?

In this episode of The TechWolf Podcast, Julius sits down with Harvard Business School Professor Joe Fuller to uncover the disconnect.

From the real business case for skills to the hidden role of AI, Joe makes one thing clear: skills are more than an HR experiment—they’re your edge in a high-stakes transformation race.

🎙️ This episode is a wake-up call for:

• CHROs navigating AI disruption

• Strategy leaders stuck in job-first thinking

• Anyone tired of skills theater and ready for results

  
  

👀 Filmed live in Ghent, this episode blends global insight with raw honesty—and might just rewire how you think about your HR function.

In this in-person episode of The TechWolf Podcast, we sit down with Ben Wein, Director of Workforce Skills Enablement at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), live from the Flanders House in New York City.

Ben shares the inside story of how one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies is becoming a skills-based organization—starting with a business-critical talent shortage in cell therapy manufacturing. He explains how BMS uses skills data to drive faster hiring, smarter workforce planning, and ultimately, patient impact.

💡 Final Takeaway: In pharma, solving the right talent problem isn’t a nice-to-have—it can literally save lives. Skills data is how BMS gets there.

Ben shares:
✔ Why time-to-fill became a life-or-death metric at BMS
✔ How skills helped solve a manufacturing talent crisis in cell therapy
✔ What not to focus on in your first year of becoming skill-based
✔ Why AI and task-level data will define the next wave of skills strategy
✔ What pharma gets right about workforce planning—and what others can learn

Time stamps:

00:00 – Welcome & Introduction of Ben Wein (Bristol Myers Squibb)
01:11 – The cultural traits powering skills strategy: Trust & transparency
02:33 – Timeline: How long BMS has been on the skills journey
03:15 – What is a skills-based organization? Ben’s definition
04:30 – Why now? AI, business urgency & talent shortages
06:40 – Cell therapy as a high-stakes use case for skills
07:53 – Skills data in pharma: Planning 5–10 years ahead
09:18 – BMS’s starting point: Talent acquisition and internal mobility
11:42 – Skills data quality: “From zero to one” and evolving governance
13:37 – Managing expectations with the business
15:18 – Speaking two languages: Business vs. HR
16:23 – How the BMS skills team is structured and evolving
18:34 – Internal mobility as the first North Star use case
20:35 – Roles, tasks, and skills: Why jobs still matter
23:56 – Still cracking the model: Tasks and the future of work
25:10 – Change management: The real skills transformation hurdle
28:44 – What’s next? Planning for AI & the future of the pharma workforce
31:02 – Where Ben goes to learn: Peers, forums, and building internal trust
33:11 – Ben’s question for the next guest

In this episode of The TechWolf Podcast, Marc Ramos, industry learning leader with Google, Novartis, Microsoft, Cornerstone, and EdTech advisor to leading HR tech companies, joins TechWolf CTO Jeroen Van Hautte to explore the emerging frontier of task-based intelligence.

Live from New York, we unpack how tasks are reshaping the future of work, why task data may be even more actionable than skills, and how AI is accelerating both.

From change management to job architecture to AI’s role in redefining value, this is a masterclass in what’s next for skills strategies.

[00:08] — Welcome and guest intros: Marc Ramos & Jeroen Van Hautte
[01:44] — How to navigate change in skills strategy: Marc’s reflections from Novartis
[07:24] — What is task-based intelligence and why is it emerging now?
[11:25] — Skills → Tasks → Outcomes: A framework for linking strategy to execution
[13:40] — Is this a new initiative or part of the skills-based journey?
[16:56] — Why tasks help define work better than job titles
[18:28] — TechWolf’s internal case study: Automating tasks and shifting skill needs
[21:41] — Re-skilling & internal mobility: Tasks bring clarity to re-skilling paths
[23:28] — How tasks reduce resistance to change & align skills to business goals
[28:40] — How AI helps map tasks and extract intelligence from work data
[30:07] — Sales example: Tasks over skills when validating pipeline success
[33:17] — Proficiency: Replacing subjective ratings with task completion evidence
[35:14] — Marc: “I hope proficiencies go away” — and what replaces them
[43:38] — Who owns task data? IT vs HR vs Infrastructure
[49:48] — Task intelligence leaders: Entropic, Novartis, and the rise of TOS (Task Operating System)
[53:47] — Prediction: Skills or tasks—what drives value in 2030?
[58:42] — Gig economy and task-driven value: where the future might go
[1:00:08] — Where Marc & Jeroen go to learn about AI, skills, and task data
[1:03:24] — Marc’s question for the next guest: What cultural attributes drive your skills strategy?

In this face-to-face episode of The TechWolf Podcast, Kason Morris, Global Director of the Future of Work and Skills-Based Organization Strategy at Merck, joins us in New York City to discuss why skills are not a trend—they're infrastructure. 

With experience at Allstate, Salesforce, and now Merck, Kason breaks down the practical realities of skills transformation: where to start, how to prove value, and what too many companies get wrong.

He shares Merck’s own journey toward becoming a more skills-informed organization, lessons learned on data governance and stakeholder management, and why the key to progress lies in durability, not perfection.

🔑 Key Takeaways from Kason Morris on Building a Skills-Intelligent Organization

🧠 Why "Skills" Are Just a Starting Point

• Skills aren't new—they're just newly scalable thanks to AI.
  

• It's not a skills problem, it's a data opportunity.
  

• Smart orgs aren't becoming skills-based—they're becoming skills-informed.
  

⏳ Waiting Is a Losing Strategy

• Delaying skills transformation puts your organization behind the curve.
  

• Momentum starts with mindset—not tools or budget.
  

• Begin lean, focused, and aligned to the business.
  

💼 How Merck Made Skills Strategic

• Business triggers came first: diversity in hiring, cross-functional capability gaps.
  

• Skills work supported digital transformation, talent mobility, and architecture.
  

• Governance structure enables scaling across business units.
  

📊 Getting and Maintaining Good Skills Data

• Start with inference and AI tools—not exhaustive self-assessments.
  

• Treat data as "do no harm"—transparency with employees is essential.
  

• A three-tier governance model keeps the data alive and business-aligned.
  

🚀 Talent Marketplaces & the Superworker

• Talent marketplaces help democratize access and power personalized growth.
  

• AI enables “superworkers” by freeing capacity for learning and creativity.
  

• Internal mobility still faces resistance—especially from middle managers.
  

🛠️ How to Sell Skills Internally

• Identify “hero use cases” with visible business impact.
  

• Use pilots to earn trust—but treat them as step 1 in a long-term journey.
  

Link skills work to outcomes leaders already care about: time-to-hire, engagement, agility.