Mumbai, Aug 22 (IANS): More than 8 in 10 (83 per cent) of employees are more likely to stay with companies that adopt a skills-first approach, a report said on Thursday, as the ability to harness 'skills intelligence' has become a decisive factor in achieving sustainable growth for companies.

The report by EY and leading skills intelligence and skills assessment platform iMocha said that 63 per cent of HR leaders observed a positive impact on talent retention and 58 per cent saw improvements in employee performance due to the skills first transformation (SFT) initiatives.

However, 87 per cent of the employees believe their organisations do not fully use their skills.

According to the findings, typical accuracy rates for current hiring, training and attrition processes are at 70-80 per cent, which can be further improved by 10-20 per cent through skills intelligence.

“Companies should monitor their accuracy rates in hiring, training, and attrition to gauge their true costs and the improvements possible with SFT,” said Priyanka Gupta, Partner, People Advisory Services, EY India.

Regardless of the transformation type, an uplift in accuracy rates with skills intelligence can deliver 1.5 to 5 times higher transformation efficiency.

According to Amit Mishra, CEO of iMocha a skills-first approach not only addresses the pressing challenge of the skills gap but also unlocks significant economic value by improving the accuracy and efficiency of workforce transformations.

With increased accuracy from skill-intelligence in hiring, training and employee attrition across organisations, the economic loss due to friction in workforce transformations can potentially be reduced significantly, while improving employee engagement from its low global average of 23 per cent, the report noted.

With the integration of skills intelligence and SFT 2.0, there is a collective effort to significantly reduce the anticipated $8.5 trillion in lost annual revenues by 2030, it added.