When generative AI first hit the scene, the promise was that new technologies would automate repetitive tasks so employees could spend more time being creative, strategic, and collaborative. A few years in, that vision is starting to take shape and it’s opening new doors for employees, teams, and entire businesses.
Companies like Yahoo Japan report that AI tools have freed up 30% of employees’ time, allowing them to focus on higher-level thinking and cross-team collaboration, according to TechRadar. GitHub has automated routine coding tasks so developers can stay engaged in design, problem solving, and innovation, per a story by Business Insider. These stories and others like them signal a shift that isn’t just about productivity, it’s about personal potential.
With more space in their workday, employees are uniquely positioned to tap into underused skills, explore new talents, and stretch into areas that make their jobs more fulfilling, all while helping your team evolve and innovate faster. As a leader, you can guide your employees as they discover or rediscover their gifts.
So, how do you help your employees find new or hidden talents?
Look past the job description
Your employees were hired for a specific role, but their skills often go far beyond their job descriptions. In other words, you could be sitting on a goldmine of untapped skills that could benefit your team. With this in mind, make a point to explore your employees’ hidden talents by looking for clues. For example, if you work in ops and one of your team members built a beautiful presentation that clearly tells a story, it signals a knack for communication and design. Patterns like these are telltale signs of strengths you can start to build on. You can take it a step further by asking your employees directly about their unused talents in your next one-on-one. Try asking questions like, “What’s something you love doing that you don’t get to do enough here?” Their answers might inspire new strategies for personal growth and team impact.
Key question: “What hidden strengths might your employees be using in the background?”
Create intentional discovery moments
When teams are busy, skill development can feel like a luxury. But having consistent moments for reflection can help employees reflect on what they’re good at and what they want to grow, even if those moments are brief. In your project retrospectives, try including conversations around growth discovery. Ask your team if anyone had to expand their skillset to complete the job or if they saw one of their teammates exercising a hidden talent to get the project across the finish line. From here, you might brainstorm with an employee or the team about how to put those new skills to good use on other projects. These reflective moments will signal to your team that growth is encouraged and illustrate how new skills can be put to use in real-time.
Key question: “When’s the next opportunity you have to ask your team about their evolving skill set?”
Encourage skills-based projects
Not every skill needs a full-time job title to be useful. If you know someone’s great at storytelling, invite them to contribute to your next pitch deck. If someone has a knack for organization, put them in charge of a new workflow rollout. Try to create lightweight ways for employees to flex and grow skills within their current role and give them ownership of that growth. Over time, these “stretch moments” can help employees build confidence, develop new capabilities, and become even more valuable contributors.
Key question: “Where can you give team members low-risk opportunities to practice new skills?”
Use a strengths test
Sometimes your team members don’t even realize what they’re good at until it’s identified by a third party. At your next team all-hands, consider having each employee take a strengths finder test, such as Gallup, to define their natural abilities. You might even ask each team member to share their results and start a conversation about it with their peers. For example, a strengths finder might identify someone as a "maximizer" and they don't see it. But their peers might chime in with moments in which that person exercised that talent without even knowing it. Creating skills building as a team moment certainly strengthens bonds between coworkers, but also lets everyone on the team know who they can go to when they need a special skill to complete a project.
Key question: “How could a strengths assessment help you uncover overlooked talent on your team?”
Set skill growth as a team priority
According to LinkedIn’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report, employees who set career goals engage with learning 4x more than those who don’t. So, don’t just identify skills, help your employees build a system for developing them. Maybe ask each of your employees to pick one area for improvement each quarter, then help them create a plan of action. You might even share individual goals across the whole team so that you make growth part of your everyday culture. When team members grow their skills together, they are more likely to make a bigger impact.
Key question: “How are you helping your team set and track skill development goals?”
