The WorkWithSkills-project (WWS) is a government-backed collaborative project between the Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Tilburg University (TiU), ArbeidsMatchPlatform (AMP) and the employers' association WENB.


In order to successfully complete the energy-transition, a large number of (technically) skilled workers are needed. At the same time, these workers are becoming increasingly hard to find and retain. WWS aim to evaluate whether Skills-Based HR methods (SBHR) could be part of the solution.


In recruitment and selection for example, organisations traditionally look for the appropriate degrees, formal qualifications and past experience. With SBHR, companies would focus on the skills a candidate or employee has acquired instead, allowing them to find candidates from a much larger pool than just those that already possess the required qualifications.


Using action research methods, our consortium is working with ten major Dutch energy-organisations to help them adopt SBHR methods, so that we can then evaluate it's effects. Our goal is to gather data on 1000 participants; ten per team, ten team per company and ten companies total. We aim to evaluate all parts of the HR-cycle; recruitment and selection, onboarding, learning and development etc.


The EUR focusses on the individual level psychological outcomes of SBHR, such as work performance and satisfaction, engagement, Person-Job or Person-Organisation fit, fairness and acceptance by peers; for candidates, (existing) employees, leaders and HR-personnel.


A cross-sectional study into the current state of SBHR-adoption nationwide is ongoing, we aim to present the results at ICAP. We're also looking to identify factors that predict whether or not HR-professionals and organisations are open to or interested in SBHR. Our goal is to gather information from +/- 200 participants from a similar amount of organisations, spanning different sectors and sizes, to get a sample that is representative of Dutch employers in general.