Every Job in Your GBS Needs an Upgrade. So Does Every Person in It.

The finance analyst I hired five years ago and the finance analyst I need today aren't the same person. Same title. Same place on the org chart. But if I look honestly at what the role actually requires now versus what it required when I last wrote the job description, I'm looking at two different jobs. Most GBS functions I speak with haven't fully reckoned with that yet, and the ones that haven't are quietly accumulating a problem that gets harder to fix the longer it sits.

This isn't only a hiring issue. It's a people issue and an organisation issue at once, and it's getting harder to ignore. The technology layer in GBS is shifting faster than any single training programme was built to handle. The tools in use today are materially different from those in use two years ago. The ones two years from now will be different again. Any job written around a specific set of tools or a fixed way of working is, right now, quietly drifting out of step with what the business actually needs from it.

The job description is sending the wrong signal

When I ask GBS leaders how recently their job descriptions were substantially rewritten, the honest answer is usually that someone added a line about digital tools or system proficiency, and that was considered current. It wasn't. Updating at the margin isn't the same as reconsidering the role from the ground up.

A job description is the first signal a candidate receives about what an organisation values. If that signal hasn't been updated to reflect how much the work has changed, the organisation ends up selecting for a profile that fits the job as it was rather than the job as it's becoming. Over time that compounds. You end up with a function staffed for an operating environment that no longer exists, and the gap between what people were hired to do and what the business now needs them to do becomes a drag on everything else.

The more useful exercise is to take any active job description and ask a simple question: if I were writing this for the first time today, knowing what I know about how the work has changed, would it look like this? In almost every case I've seen, the answer is no. The scope, the skills that matter, and the kind of judgment the role demands have all moved on, but the document hasn't caught up.

What the role actually needs now

When I look at what genuinely differentiates strong performers in GBS functions right now, it isn't a particular qualification or a specific system they know how to use. Those things matter less than they used to, because the systems keep changing. What I see consistently in the people adding real value is a continuous improvement mindset. They treat learning as part of the job rather than something they do when there's spare time. They come in with enough exposure to various technologies that a new tool arriving doesn't unsettle them. And they're willing to transition as the work around them changes, because they understand that's what the role requires now.

There's also something worth saying about the difference between exposure and expertise. The expectation isn't that every person in a GBS function needs to be a technologist. It's that they need enough familiarity with the tools in their environment to work alongside them confidently, to know when an automated output needs questioning, and to contribute to conversations about how the process could work better. That's a realistic bar. But it doesn't happen by accident. It requires that the organisation has been intentional about building that exposure, and that the job description signals it as a real requirement from the start rather than an afterthought.

Continuous improvement mindset, technology exposure, and the disposition to be mouldable as things change need to move from the bottom of the requirements list to the top. Not as aspirational language buried in a paragraph about culture, but as actual evaluation criteria that shape who gets hired.

The obligation runs in two directions

Here's where most organisations get stuck. They frame the upgrade as either a talent acquisition problem or a learning and development problem, and address one without the other.

Rewriting job descriptions without investing in existing people creates a split inside the function. New hires come in with the right profile. Existing team members, many of whom are capable and experienced, find themselves measured against criteria that weren't in place when they were hired and that they haven't been supported in building toward. That creates friction, and it sends a message about who the organisation is really investing in that people read clearly.

Going the other way, expecting existing people to upgrade themselves without updating the structure around them, puts the obligation entirely on the individual. Some people will do it because they're self-directed. Most won't, not because they lack the capability, but because the environment hasn't made growth a clear expectation or given them the time and support to act on it.

What works is treating the two as connected. The job description sets the new expectation, the development investment gives people a real opportunity to meet it, and the performance conversation closes the loop by making growth a visible part of how contribution is evaluated. When those three things are aligned, the upgrade happens at the function level. When they aren't, you get uneven progress that's hard to build on.

Where to start

The organisations making progress on this aren't waiting for a formal workforce transformation programme. They're starting with the next hire. They review the job description before the role goes live and ask whether it reflects what the job actually is now. They weight adaptability and learning orientation more explicitly in the hiring conversation. And they're having a parallel conversation with people already in those roles about what growth looks like in the new version of the job, framed as an investment in where the function is going rather than a performance management exercise.

None of this requires a large programme to initiate. It requires honesty about the gap between the jobs as written and the jobs as needed, and the willingness to act on what that gap reveals. I've seen functions move meaningfully on this in a matter of months when leadership decided it was worth the attention. The ones still waiting for the right moment to start that conversation are, in the meantime, hiring people into jobs that were written for a world that's already moved on.

The technology will keep changing. The only durable response is building a function where the people in it are genuinely oriented toward changing with it. The role needs updating. So does the person in it. In my experience, the organisations making real progress are the ones who stopped treating these as separate conversations.

AUTHOR BIO 

Chang Te Sheng is Head of Digital at AGOS Asia, a GBS and digital transformation advisory firm based in Kuala Lumpur. He will be speaking at AGOS GBS Summit 2026 on 10 September at Sheraton Petaling Jaya, where the people and workforce track will be explored in depth alongside a panel of senior GBS leaders from across the region.