The TechWolf Podcast “We Did the Skills Work. Nothing Happened.” | PayPal’s Sarah Gretczko on The Truth About Skills Strategy
May 4, 2025
Sarah Gretczko, Head of Talent & Belonging at PayPal, brings over 20 years of HR strategy experience to the table. She dives into why skills are just one piece of the human potential puzzle, sharing tales of transformation and lessons from failed initiatives. Sarah discusses the importance of aligning skills with real business challenges, strategies for effective change management, and how building relationships with tech vendors is crucial. Finally, she emphasizes that any skills data must address genuine problems to be truly impactful.
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Beyond Skills: Whole Person View
- Skills alone don’t capture the whole of human potential; other personal attributes matter just as much.
- Understanding an individual fully helps teams complement each other's abilities effectively.
Skills as Data Proxy
- Skills data is a proxy to understand what people can do but lacks full insight into performance in environment.
- The popularity of skills stems from seeking more objective workforce insights enabled by technology.
Skills Data Repurposed for COVID
- MasterCard used skills data for future workforce planning, but found it hard to act on the insights.
- During COVID, that same data effectively informed their return-to-office strategy, showing value in unexpected ways.
