Faces of HR: Standard Chartered’s Urvi Jobalia on why organisations should consider redeploying talent before investing in reskilling

"Most organisations are struggling with aligning the demand and supply of talent because the pace of upskilling through training is slower than pace of change in skills." she notes.

In the face of a global talent shortage of skills, companies are increasingly struggling to fill critical roles, particularly in areas requiring specialised (hot) skills. While research highlights employees' desire to upskill in order to remain relevant, the challenge still lies in aligning supply with demand, as Urvi Jobalia, Global Head of Talent Deployment and Strategic TA Partner for Tech and Ops at Standard Chartered, points out.

Urvi brings more than two decades of expertise in transformation, talent strategy, and DEI. Urvi is an award-winning senior leader, panellist, speaker, and strategist with 20 years in transformation, people partnering, talent acquisition, and DEI. She has led multiple global and regional roles ranging from multi-nationals to start-ups across various industries including banking, telecommunications, software, and consulting, with focus on functions that drive tech and innovation.

On the challenge above, she proposes a shift in approach — redeploying talent first and then reskilling on the job, rather than focusing solely on reskilling before redeployment.

In this interview ahead of her session at Talent Mobility 2025, Urvi shares with Sabarish Prasad how this strategy can help bridge the talent gap while empowering employees to remain agile in a fast-changing work environment.

Q What is the #1 challenge you face in managing talent mobility currently, be it across borders or internally between functions? 

In the face of a global talent shortage of skills, companies are increasingly struggling to fill critical roles, particularly in areas requiring specialised (hot) skills. According to a World Economic Forum report and recent study by Korn Ferry, there will be a global talent shortage of more than 85mn by 2030. As a result, finding top talent externally is a challenge and expensive in the competitive market. This is complemented by the World Economic Forum report which shows that employees across the globe are experiencing a new kind of FOMO i.e., FOBO (fear of being obsolete) and they want to upskill to remain relevant.

However, most organisations are struggling with aligning the demand and supply of talent because the pace of upskilling through training is slower than pace of change in skills. 

Q Planning ahead, is there an aspect of improvement or evolution you hope to see in talent mobility, for it to deliver more business impact? 

Talent mobility has a strong business case. A recent study by Josh Bersin shows that 62% of employees who make lateral moves experience high retention rates with the organisation and when promoted, they are 70% more likely to stay long term.

While organisations have several fungibility programmes underway, the growing need for faster outcomes and quarterly profits creates barriers for people leaders to create room for ‘learning in the job’ and instead aggravates the ‘plug and play’ hiring mindset.

This reflects in engagement and retention.

Perhaps it is time to turn the concept on its head and instead of reskilling people to redeploy, organisations can consider how they can redeploy first in order to reskill talent on the job.  

Q Finally, what are you most looking forward to during your own session at #TalentMobility in February 2025? 

 Standard Chartered is making great progress on our ambition to create a skills-based organisation, and this approach will accelerate internal deployment & mobility further.

However, we still have a significant opportunity to improve this further and I am looking forward to sharing some of the practices but also learning from other organisations about how we can capitalise on the strategic advantages of internal mobility by tapping into our employees' diverse skill sets, and therefore increasing productivity, retention and engagement. 

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