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"We Needed More Skilled Talent to Save Lives" | How Bristol Myers Squibb Used Skills Data to Solve a Life-or-Death Talent Shortage
Episode Summary
In this episode of the TechWolf Podcast, Ben Wein, Director of Workforce Skills Enablement at Bristol Myers Squibb, reveals how a mission-critical talent shortage in BMS’s cell therapy division sparked a company-wide shift toward a skills-based organization. Ben unpacks how his team started from zero data, launched a talent intelligence platform, and engaged both HR and business leaders in reimagining talent acquisition and internal mobility through skills. This is a story of urgency, alignment, and impact.
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Key Takeaways from Ben Wein on Skills-Based Organizations
🔑 Skills are data — A skills-based organization uses data to drive people decisions, from hiring to upskilling.
🧠 Trust and transparency are non-negotiables — especially when introducing AI and people data into the HR mix.
🚨 Business urgency drives transformation — BMS needed talent to manufacture life-saving cell therapies. Time to fill became a life-or-death metric.
🏗️ Start small, move fast — They piloted with talent acquisition and internal mobility before scaling skills governance.
🔬 Jobs, tasks, and skills must be connected — BMS learned the limits of traditional job architecture and is now integrating tasks into its skills model.
📈 Skills data doesn’t need to be perfect to be useful — Even 20% better data drives smarter decisions.
🎙️ Change management takes more effort than the tech — Internal podcasts, curated communication, and HRBP enablement were key to adoption.
🤝 Cross-functional collaboration is essential — The business, HR, and IT all played integral roles in implementation.
About the Speaker: Ben Wein
Ben Wein is Director of Workforce Skills Enablement at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he leads the company’s skills-based transformation and talent intelligence initiatives. With a background in systems implementation and HR innovation, Ben’s mission is to integrate skills data into every part of the employee lifecycle—from hiring to workforce planning. He’s passionate about using data to solve real business problems, especially in high-stakes contexts like pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Best Practices & Actionable Insights
✔️ Start with a business-critical use case to build urgency and get buy-in
✔️ Equip HRBPs with simple, consistent messaging to explain the “why” behind skills
✔️ Don’t wait for perfect data — better data is still better
✔️ Treat skills as infrastructure — tie it to job architecture and task analysis
✔️ Invest in change management as much as you invest in technology
✔️ Partner early with business leaders — they’ll become your biggest champions
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