Understand the skills you have (& potential skill gaps) with a custom competency model
Know what skills you have in your organization
Harvard Business Review Analytic Services found almost half (44%) of executives consider their workforce plans to be driven by finance and do not take talent dynamics into consideration.
Do you know what skills you have in your organization? Did you know that Sam in finance actually designs websites for his kids’ sports teams in his spare time? It may sound obvious, but knowing what skills your employees currently have, and at what levels of proficiency, is the essential first step in skill planning for the future.
Start with a skills framework.
Think of it like a blueprint for a house. Without one, contractors wouldn’t know where to put the windows, which kind of windows are needed, where the bedrooms go, and how all the various rooms fit together. It’s the same for your workforce. A skills framework provides an understanding of your skills, how they fit together, and where you have gaps. It can be fairly extensive, depending on the size and nature of your business. Think of the difference as a blueprint for a three-bedroom house versus a shopping center.
Your skills framework should not only be about technical skills. We know they’re important, but the technical skills of value today may not be what you need most in the future. In fact, when we can’t always predict what we’ll need tomorrow, it’s just as important to look at soft skills, like whether someone is creative, a continuous learner, or comfortable with change. Those kinds of attributes are often what make people really successful in a job.
Rest assured you don’t need to start from scratch on your skills framework.
SkillDirector can provide you with standard competency models. With them, you will know the industry standard for each of your roles, including technical and soft skills. And for each, you’ll have behavioral examples showing you what great looks like, and have the option to tweak those details for your organization.
When used in conjunction with the Self-Directed Learning Engine™, you’ll have rich workforce analytics that delivers your competency matrix. These analytics will tell you what skills you have in your organization, and what skill gaps you need to close. It powers workforce agility - so you can move the pieces around to provide the organization with the right skills in the right place, while providing each person with the best opportunity for success. The SkillDirector solution provides an out-of-the-box solution to get you to skills assessment and a skills inventory in just 2 weeks.