The Skill Set is a video series that showcases how SAP SuccessFactors customers—across industries, sizes, and stages of transformation—are building a future-ready workforce with a skills-first approach.

For Capgemini, building a leading digital services business starts with empowering its people. Guided by the promise to “Get the Future You Want,” the company has spent the past several years rethinking what growth means for both the organization and every person in it.

That journey has led to a skills-first transformation that touches every stage of the employee experience. Carolina Molnar, Executive Vice President and Group Head of HR Transformation at Capgemini, shares how the company is using SAP SuccessFactors to connect people with opportunities, align development to business priorities, and create a culture where learning and innovation go hand in hand.

How is Capgemini’s mission to “Get the Future You Want” driving your skills strategy?

This journey started four years ago, and we did a lot of work in terms of understanding what this future was for our employees and our candidates. We spent tons of time listening, and using a lot of the learnings we got from that, we embedded skills in all the important steps of the employee lifecycle. From the moment we attract or recruit people, you see it in all of our processes. Understanding how can we help our people get the future they want meant trying to understand what that was for them, what was needed, and what was important, and we tried to accommodate and build that into all of our moments that matter.

What is the role of SAP SuccessFactors in Capgemini’s skills transformation?

It’s one of the big puzzle pieces. In our case, the transformation was end to end, so we looked at a new operating model and a new way of interacting with people managers, a new set of processes, and the technology really helped us to put all these different pieces together. For example, thanks to roles-based permissions, business partners can really focus on what they have to do. They don’t have access to things that aren’t important to them, so technology is helping us to make this new type of operating model more clear.

How have you created a culture where employees want to develop their skills in line with the business?

For us at Capgemini, getting our people upskilled and having the latest skills in the market is absolutely core to our business. That’s why we put a lot of focus on how we attract people and looking at their skill sets, how we develop them, and also how we staff them to projects. And that’s very relevant for us to know what skills the market needs and how we can meet those needs and help our employees to grow.

What we’re doing now is going live with SAP SuccessFactors Career and Talent Development and the talent intelligence hub, and with that we close the circle because we give employees the opportunity to see how their skills profile fits with future roles they want to grow into and also gives us the opportunity ourselves to also look at what the market is demanding and try to influence that and get them closer to one career path versus another one. It’s a great functionality, and we’re really looking forward to getting it implemented.

What advice do you have for peers going through a similar transformation?

There are a couple of the things that helped us get where we are today, which is finishing this transformation in the time we planned and really with a focus. First, identifying the moments that matter based on what our employees wanted. This investment at the beginning in trying to understand the pain points for you, because they’re not the same for all companies, is critical. That helped us keep the focus on what we needed to achieve and not get lost. Second thing, I know it’s not always possible but having your sponsorship super close —being able to immediately escalate when things aren’t going well and getting their help to succeed. It’s not always easy to get that attention, but those are two things I really would recommend.