How to Build a Skills-Ready Workforce in 2026

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we sit down with Jayney Howson , SVP Global Workforce Skills & Talent Readiness at ServiceNow , to unpack why “talent readiness” has become a burning platform for companies trying to keep pace with AI, platform adoption, and customer transformation. Jayney shares how ServiceNow builds skills for both its 28,000 employees and the millions of practitioners who power ServiceNow implementations inside the world’s largest enterprises, including 85% of the Fortune 500. She explains how ServiceNow built ServiceNow University, an AI powered, hyper personalized learning platform designed around the concept of the “University of You”, where every learner’s journey adapts to their context, their role, their skills, and their career aspirations. Jayney breaks down why minimum viable duration, skills profiles, and embedded learning experiences are replacing traditional course catalogs, and why democratizing training (including making it free) unlocks capability at global scale. Most importantly, she shares why transparency, trust, and psychological safety matter more than ever as skills shift, roles evolve, and automation changes the nature of work, and why, if we do this right, the future of work becomes more human, not less. 🎓 In this episode, Jayney discusses: How to embed learning into the flow of work and the flow of career Why democratizing training creates global talent pipelines at scale How ServiceNow University personalizes learning through AI and skills data Why learning must shift to minimum viable duration and assessment led experiences Why talent readiness became a burning platform for ServiceNow internally and externally 🙏‍ Thank you to our series partner - atlas copilot Meet the AI-native adaptive learning platform that builds the course, teaches the skill, and proves the impact, while work is happening, not weeks later → See Privacy Policy at and California Privacy Notice at .

You can listen to How to Build a Skills-Ready Workforce in 2026 online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

How to Build a Skills-Ready Workforce in 2026 is an episode from HR Leaders by Chris Rainey.

This episode is 00:15:08 long.

This episode was published on Jan 21, 2026.

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