Introduction
Organizations need to be aware of the skills necessary for ongoing and fast digital transformation. This is where the fundamental building element, an IT skills taxonomy, and a skills-based strategy become useful. What is a skills taxonomy, and how can businesses use it to improve operational efficiency?
Skills taxonomy: what is it?
An organized collection of skills that are established at the organizational level and provide a quantitative identification of a business’s capabilities is called a skills taxonomy. It is essentially a framework that groups and clusters skills within an organization. Your company may deliver workforce plans that are effective and increase operational efficiency by having a common knowledge and language created by an IT skills taxonomy. It is the foundation of a skills-based strategy.
What is included in a skills taxonomy and how skills are categorized?
Your organization’s skills taxonomy must adapt to the changing needs of both your employees and your business. Implementing a tried-and-true skills assessment system is also essential. This is a procedure that aids in offering accurate insights into the strengths and skill gaps in your team.
Skills inventory and taxonomy are not the same. That is a detailed list of every experience, professional talent, and educational background held by staff members within a company.
Components of a taxonomy of skills
Names of skills
The company shouldn’t lose out on the insightful information that a higher level of specificity in the skill names provides. Additionally, they shouldn’t be so particular that it becomes difficult to compare employee performance to theirs.
Descriptions of skills
To develop a coherent knowledge of any skill, these explanations are essential. Individual interpretation is avoided by providing as many details as feasible in the descriptions. When you start using this as a foundation for team competency audits and assessments, it becomes crucial.
Hierarchy of skills
The advantages of a hierarchical skill taxonomy structure are the same as those of a computer’s file and folder hierarchy. It enables the grouping of comparable talents and gives users an intuitive, logical approach to navigating what could be a lengthy list of organizational skills.
Mapping skills
You need to decide how to assign your staff members to roles, teams, and various places if you wish to go beyond a static and basic abilities library. Each talent has these particular categories connected to it, which adds meaning and significance to your data. It becomes a crucial component of success measurement and data-driven decision-making based on particular skill gaps and competencies.
A shift from a role-based to a skills-based approach
Businesses and HR managers have historically tended to see employees primarily through the lens of their roles. Creating a one-page summary of key duties helps simplify tasks and align them with employee skills, improving organization and efficiency.
With a skills-based approach, the focus is on the individual skills that each member of the workforce possesses, rather than on the collective talents of large groups of people. Through the use of a consolidated and transparent atomic perspective, the potential for optimizing workforce talent across departments, disciplines, functions, and other conventional business lines is unlocked.
Where to get information for skill taxonomy?
Three options to help you expedite your skills taxonomy efforts are as follows:
Make use of public libraries
Open-source skills taxonomies include libraries like O*NET, supported by the U.S. Department of Labour, and ESCO, created by the European Commission. They have hundreds of talents that you may use for free to help you define the skills taxonomy for your organization.
Make use of skill management providers
To expedite the onboarding process, skills management companies occasionally make pre-compiled talent lists available to their clients. Utilizing your vendor’s skill taxonomies will assist you in getting started if you are adopting a skills management application for your business to manage skills (a highly recommended practice!).
Utilize updated lists of organizational skills
Since talent tracking is not a brand-new idea, likely, certain departments within your company have already launched efforts to identify employee skill sets. These lists might not have the level of information you need to develop your current skills taxonomy, but they might offer a good place to start that closely matches the workings of your company.
Conclusion
To begin enjoying the advantages of a skills-based strategy, create an IT skills taxonomy. It’s time to step up your HR efforts with IYS Skills Tech whether you’re planning a digital project, want to build a workforce and business that is more flexible and resilient, want to improve employee experiences, or want to provide more value to your customers.