Gartner HR Survey Reveals Hiring for Promise Instead of Proficiency is More Effective and Efficient for Closing Skills Gaps

Published: 2025-03-13 06:13:10 ET IT

Learning & Development and Talent Management Leaders Can Work Together to Enable Higher Internal Mobility.

Organizations lose out on performance gains when they require employees to demonstrate proficiency in all skill requirements before moving them into critical roles, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc. In fact, employees hired based on promise are 1.9 times more likely to perform effectively than those hired for proficiency.

An October 2024 Gartner survey revealed that 48% of the 190 surveyed HR leaders agreed the demand for new skills is evolving faster than existing talent structures and processes can support.

'Many organizations are transforming their capabilities so rapidly that they can't acquire all the skills they need - the talent either doesn't exist or is too expensive,' said Meaghan Kelly, Director in the Gartner HR Practice. 'This puts more pressure on organizations to build skills internally, but unfortunately, most organizations are not building skills fast enough to fill critical roles.'

One of the biggest challenges facing organizations today when building skills is the pressure put on building proficiency. The current approach of requiring employees to be proficient in all skills before transitioning into new roles is delaying performance and hindering growth. (see Figure 1).

Figure 1:

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Source: Gartner (October 2024)

To speed up time spent on skills development and facilitate internal mobility, HR leaders must shift from building proficiency to building on promise, which Gartner defines as 'a willingness and ability to learn new skills from a minimum foundation.' Yet, in an October 2024 Gartner survey of more than 3,200 employees, only 28% reported that their organization places importance on building on promise.

Mobilizing Promise

One of the biggest challenges in mobilizing organizations to hire on promise is actually identifying employees with promise. According to the October Gartner survey, 51% of managers agreed that they request recruiters to only focus on recruiting employees with all desired skills when recruiting internally.

'Waiting to find an employee with all of the exact skills listed for a role significantly shrinks the pool of potential candidates,' said Annika Jessen, Director in the Gartner HR practice. 'Instead, managers should focus on defining simple, foundational role requirements to reach a wider group of candidates.'

To encourage managers to adopt this approach, recruiters should illustrate what promise looks like for in-demand skills via quantitative and qualitative data, and how to transform promise into performance.

Realizing Promise

Offering support to employees hired based on promise is crucial, though there is currently an overreliance on managers for this support, despite their high levels of burnout. To help lift the burden of support off managers, organizations can implement skills-based learning networks, which include the employee, their manager, learning and development, talent management, and a subject matter expert. Per Gartner research, implementing a network support approach has nearly doubled the impact on skills preparedness versus the 1:1 support approach.

To access the on-demand webinar, clients can visit Close Skills Gaps at Scale.

About Gartner for HR Leaders

The Gartner HR practice brings together the best relevant content approaches across Gartner to offer individual decision makers strategic business advice on the mission-critical priorities that cut across the HR function. Additional information is available at https://www.gartner.com/en/human-resources/products/gartner-for-hr. Follow news and updates from the Gartner HR practice on X and LinkedIn using #GartnerHR.

Media contact

Mary Baker

Gartner

mary.baker@gartner.com

Gerri Weinberger

Gartner

gerri.weinberger@gartner.com