In one of my previous jobs, I was part of a very small team that was building the career matrix for two new, evolving functions.
I specifically included years of experience in the matrix as thresholds for entry and also for promotions.
Guess what?
My HR partner pushed back on it saying that it’s not company policy to have years of experience as a criteria for hiring or promotions.
I could agree that time spent productively in a function may not be directly correlated with improved expertise, especially if there is no upskilling seen.
But it seems like a trend these days, to de-emphasize the importance of experience, stemming from an over-emphasis of (shallow, in many cases) demonstration of expertise, without broad contextual exposure or crucial elements like continued reliability, ability to hold themselves, and their teams, together in tough scenarios etc.
Oh, and soft skills matter. That, in particular, is a function of time for the majority of the productive work force.