Revolutionizing the Workforce: Skills, Thrills, and Agile Talent

Written by Tracy Judge, CEO & Founder of Soundings
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In the business events industry, talent remains the elephant in the room. It’s a topic that comes up during presentations or in thought leadership discussions, but actionable insights on how to drive real change are rarely provided. We’ve innovated across various areas—technology, event formats, sustainability—but when it comes to human capital, we’re not applying the same data-driven decision-making that we champion in other areas.

And why? My guess: IT’S HARD.

We discuss the challenges of managing generational differences, recruiting young talent, bridging skills gaps, addressing burnout, and retaining experienced professionals. But despite these conversations, real solutions are elusive, and in many ways, we are treating the symptoms, not the root cause. Human capital is dynamic and complex—unlike technology or logistics, it’s not as predictable or easily measured. Yet, it remains the core driver of success in the industry.

The right people can help a business adapt to change, overcome obstacles, and reach new levels of success. Without this focus on human capital—on getting “the right people on the bus” first—any strategy or innovation is built on shaky ground, hence the talent challenges we face in the industry today. The first challenge is:

How do we ensure we have the right people in the right roles at the right time to drive success?

Agile staffing creates a workforce that can quickly adapt to evolving demands. Rather than relying solely on full-time employees, businesses can integrate part-time staff, freelancers, and contractors to meet dynamic needs. This flexibility ensures organizations get the right support exactly when they need it, free from the limitations of traditional hiring models.

However, while agile staffing helps address immediate needs, it’s only part of the solution. To fully unlock the potential of human capital, businesses must go beyond conventional hiring practices. A crucial element of this shift is skills-based hiring, which prioritizes individuals’ skills and strengths over titles and qualifications. This approach aligns people with roles where they can excel—and when talent thrives, businesses thrive too.

According to a McKinsey & Company report, companies that prioritize skills over formal qualifications can expand their talent pool by as much as 67%. Additionally, research from the World Economic Forum shows that organizations using skills-based hiring see a 30% improvement in diversity metrics, which further strengthens team dynamics and business outcomes.

A notable example of this shift is Blackstone, a global investment firm with over 250 portfolio companies, including Cvent and Encore, two major players in the business events industry. In 2020, Blackstone launched its Career Pathways program, designed to tap into underrepresented talent pools and rethink traditional hiring practices. As Joe Baratta, founder of the program and Blackstone’s global head of private equity, built the program on the principal that:

“At Blackstone, we believe that talent is a key value creator. Strategically deploying talent is a pivotal factor in achieving sustained growth and optimizing returns.”

This shift towards skills-based hiring reflects a larger trend across industries, as highlighted at the Forbes Future of Work Summit, where companies acknowledged the growing importance of focusing on individuals' skills and strengths over traditional qualifications, and also how hard it is to implement. As Courtney della Cava said, "It’s relatively easy to recruit; it’s less easy to have the leaky bucket." That brings us to the next challenge:

Once we have the right talent, how do we retain them?

Blackstone’s approach mirrors what I realized early on when starting Soundings: success isn’t just about hiring people with impressive resumes—it’s about understanding what makes them truly thrive. When I was still in the ideation phase for what became Soundings, I remember walking with one of my advisors, and he asked, “Why are you starting a services company? If it were a tech company, you’d have a much higher valuation.” My response was direct: I knew that building productive teams was about much more than experience or past roles, and I wasn't sure if technology could do the job of capturing the other variables. I wanted to take a human-first approach to truly understand what makes people successful.

In fact, the name Soundings® reflects this philosophy. It’s about going below the surface, gathering the right information and evidence as a preliminary step before deciding on a course of action. This approach underpins how we match talent—by diving deep into skills, strengths, and other characteristics to ensure the perfect alignment between roles and individuals.

This challenge shaped much of our early work at Soundings, and the way we approached talent matching became the cornerstone of our solutions. What we realized early on is that it had to be a talent-first approach. I know this sounds cliché, but it’s true. The problem is, the textbook definition of this approach is missing a foundational step—offering talent the opportunity to go below the surface—giving them the space and tools to deeply understand themselves first.

Through this process of helping talent better understand themselves, we’ve homed in on the things that truly matter: skills, strengths, character, purpose, and performance. By focusing on these elements, we are able to match individuals with roles that align with their core competencies and personal motivations, ensuring they not only succeed in their roles but also find meaning and satisfaction in their work. In return, organizations also benefit.

So, what's the role of technology?

Earlier, I mentioned that I wasn’t sure if technology could do the job of matching talent in for the business events industry. What I’ve come to realize through this journey is that while technology alone isn’t the full solution, it can enhance the talent-matching process. Ultimately, we are creating a human-centric, tech-driven solution to solve many of the talent challenges we face today.

And while this solution was initially developed to match organizations with freelance talent, we’ve realized its broader potential: it can be applied company-wide, helping organizations match talent across all divisions and competencies, and is foundational to leveraging agile talent strategies.

Last week, I had the opportunity to present at IMEX America in Las Vegas. While I’ve spoken at many conferences, this presentation was especially meaningful to me. It was the first time I combined the concepts of agile talent and skills-based hiring in a presentation, using human capital data to tell the story. Although we’ve applied these methods at Soundings for years, preparing for this session gave me a deeper appreciation of how far we’ve come on our journey. The strong interest in the session also reinforced my belief that combining these concepts with human capital data can truly revolutionize the way we work with talent.

I’m looking forward to the next opportunity to present on this topic. In the meantime, please subscribe to my LinkedIn newsletter, Let’s Stay Agile, to stay updated with insights, data, and case studies on skills-based hiring and agile talent strategies.