The Data and Measurement Issue - 22

Employee and job data reside in
various organizational systems; they
are not always accurate or current;
and historically they've been used
by companies to manage employees,
not for employees to access and
use themselves. When organizations
use the job or position as the unit
of measurement to organize data,
information about employees is related
to the jobs they hold or perhaps
relevant competencies. However, job
and position data are often unreliable
or incomplete, and competencies are
typically very descriptive and not easy
to use in intelligent applications.
Using skills data to elevate the talent experience
by Jennifer Burnett, PhD
What if learning new skills and
navigating your career was as simple
and individualized as your experiences
using smart apps in your personal life?
A key reason for the disparity between
personal and professional digital
experiences is that collecting and
managing data about employees
is more complex than configuring
an app. To leverage advanced,
intelligent tools that elevate the talent
experience, we need data that are
simpler, clearer, commonly understood,
and applicable to both the work and
workers-that data element is skills.
To confidently use data to inform and
enhance the talent experience, the data
must be generated and curated using
a rigorous, systematic, and disciplined
process. Using skills data that are not
only designed and defined specifically for
the organization, but also confirmed and
validated by employees and managers,
enables the integrity, validity, and
usefulness of the data. Skills data allow
us to more effectively connect information
about work and workers, opening up new
possibilities for a more agile, thriving,
and versatile talent experience.
Technology
enables the use
of skills
Skills-driven talent technology is
an enabler of these data-informed
experiences. Without the right
framework, policies, and tools in place
to enable the effective use of skills
data, they're just another data source.
There has been an explosion of skills
tech fueling learning experience platforms
(LXPs), talent marketplaces, career
growth and development tools, and
skills-based talent acquisition as well
as compensation. The heart of these
solutions relies on skills data, which
are organized by skills taxonomies and
ontologies that are connected to people,
roles, jobs, learning content, development
opportunities, gigs, projects, and more.
Here's how organizations use skills
data in talent practices to elevate the
employee experience: Their leaders are
able to utilize rich, reliable, accessible,
and connected data to gain insights
and greater visibility to the capabilities
of their workforce. These insights allow
leaders to identify and address current
skills gaps and anticipate future skill
needs. Utilizing skills that have been
defined and structured the same way-
regardless of whether they are connected
to people, roles, jobs, or content-allows
for more complex analysis and enables
data-informed talent decisions that
benefit real humans and real work.
The Data and Measurement Issue

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