ServiceNow's Approach to Skills and Workforce Readiness: Jayney Howson

The rapid transformation of work, driven by technological acceleration and evolving business needs, is leaving organizations scrambling to keep their employees future ready. ServiceNow’s Chief Learning Officer Jayney joins me to share her thoughts on how organizations can move beyond traditional skilling to focus on comprehensive readiness, including the unique human abilities that set people apart from machines. Jayney discusses ServiceNow’s model of a "talent signature"—a multidimensional skill profile that brings together AI fluency, functional expertise, and the elusive but critical human advantage. You'll hear how ServiceNow is transforming learning into a personalized, playful, and data-driven experience, why curiosity can’t be taught but can be learned, and how measuring what makes us uniquely human is key.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...

03:46 Measuring uniquely human skills13:08 Assessing employee skill readiness15:03 Emerging AI skills and demand18:56 Creating conditions for curiosity27:26 Workforce readiness and skills gap32:32 Focus on customer-centric strategy35:43 Debating centralized vs. federated learning37:33 Introducing SimStudio for training47:04 Creating a unique learning environment48:12 Solving the learning experience puzzle56:09 How the Lead Boldly model works

The Shift from Skilling to Workforce Readiness

Workforce readiness has become the new clarion call for organizations. Between 30 and 100% of skills are going to change in the workforce over the next 3 years. This volatility demands a seismic shift in how we think about people development: not as one-off, reactive upskilling, but as continuous preparation for evolving roles and technologies.

At ServiceNow, readiness means aligning workforce capabilities with both current role requirements and the unpredictable demands of tomorrow’s jobs. Readiness isn’t about checking boxes on completed learning modules—it’s about ensuring employees can confidently perform in their roles now and adapt to what’s next.

Rethinking Skills: The Talent Signature Model

Central to ServiceNow’s approach is the concept of the “talent signature”—a model that assesses employees across three dimensions:

AI Fluency: The understanding and leverage of AI, scaled according to job requirements.Functional Skills: Core competencies needed for specific roles (e.g., technical, sales, marketing).Human Skills: The human advantage—skills that remain when AI takes over routine work, s