---
id: "claim-hr-silo-failure"
type: "claim"
source_timestamps: ["§ Reskilling Is the Responsibility of Every Leader and Manager"]
tags: ["organizational-design", "leadership", "metrics"]
related: ["contrarian-reskilling-not-hr", "framework-five-paradigms"]
confidence: "high"
testable: true
speakers: ["Jorge Tamayo", "Leila Doumi", "Sagar Goel", "Orsolya Kovács-Ondrejkovic", "Raffaella Sadun"]
sources: ["reskilling"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-reskilling"
originDay: 10
articleStem: "hbr-edu-34-reskilling-in-age-of-ai"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2023/09/reskilling-in-the-age-of-ai"
sourceTitle: "Reskilling in the Age of AI"
---
# Siloing reskilling in HR leads to program failure

**Claim (confidence: high, testable).** When reskilling is treated merely as a corporate-learning function siloed within HR, its success is measured by narrow metrics like cost-per-learner or trainings delivered.

The authors argue that without a clear connection to corporate strategy — which **only 24% of polled companies currently make** — and without visible championing by the C-suite and middle management, reskilling initiatives fail to achieve the relentless, distributed effort required for scale and success. This claim is the evidentiary basis for the contrarian position [[contrarian-reskilling-not-hr]] and paradigm two of [[framework-five-paradigms]].

**Enrichment note.** Strong alignment with broader literature framing skills as a leadership/strategy issue (Chief Learning Officer; Gallagher; OECD Employment Outlook). A dissenting nuance: some experts hold that HR/L&D, when strategically positioned and data-equipped, can be the *central orchestrator* — and warn that making reskilling "everyone's job" without clear ownership risks diffusion of responsibility and weak execution.