Career Mobility and Skills Audit

In the sixth issue of the Career Mobility Newsletter, I am focusing on the third element of the framework, the Current Skills Audit.?I modified the framework model somewhat (see below), adding in recurring Change Management given the required modifications in culture, processes, and systems.?I also added a background platform for cloud technologies.?Don’t worry, you don’t have to have everything all at once.?The point is to get started.?

Career Mobility and Current Skills Audit

Like summer sports, work roles have different skill sets but also some in common. For example, the top five basic basketball skills are 1) shooting, 2) dribbling, 3) defense, 4) rebounding, and 5) passing.?The top five soccer skills are: 1) passing, 2) dribbling, 3) trapping and receiving the ball, 4) shooting the ball, and 5) movement off the ball. In soccer, two skills, shooting and dribbling are also common in basketball. ?The basic top five running skills include: 1) jogging, 2) sprinting, 3) chasing, 4) dodging, and 5) evading. ?All these running skills are important in many sports, like American football.?Similarly, we will also find some common skills in very different job roles.

What is a skills audit?

According to this Academy to Innovate HR (AIHR) article:

A skills audit assesses an employee’s skills and capabilities to identify potential knowledge gaps or growth opportunities for an individual. On an organizational level, a skills audit assesses the skills of everyone in the organization to act as a ‘heat map’ for areas of strengths and weaknesses of the existing workforce.

Why conduct a skills audit?

AIHR lists seven reasons to conduct a skills audit:

1.??????Gain insights into your employee’s skills

2.??????Uncover any skills gaps

3.??????Plan your training and upskilling initiatives

4.??????Improve hiring

5.??????Build organizational capabilities

6.??????Improve talent attraction and acquisition

7.??????Align individual and team goals

This infographic from Deloitte shows the results of a Q1 2022 survey of 125 HR executives and 100 business executives in their work strategy shift to skills-based practices. They reported the most significant move (30%) was from career growth based on job experience in structured career paths to using AI-powered suggestions to guide career opportunities based on workers’ skills, interests, and potential.

?According to Lever’s Complete Guide to Internal Mobility, the number two internal mobility best practice is to audit your team’s existing skill sets. This is second only to the number one best practice to build a culture that encourages internal mobility.?This topic was covered in the Career Mobility and Workplace Culture issue of my newsletter.

A post on Internal Mobility Skills Audits from the PeopleScout website, states:

One of the earliest and most important steps in the internal mobility process is identifying which employees within your organization should be targeted for internal roles based on skills, experience, and willingness to explore new career paths.

Despite the importance of a current skills audit, only 18% of employees feel their employers understand their skills, interests, and skill gaps well.?According to this Deloitte Insights article on “The skills-based organization”, only 14% of business executives strongly agree that their organization is using the workforce’s skills and capabilities to their fullest potential.?

Who conducts an internal mobility skills audit?

The PeopleScout post referenced above also suggests that team leaders or managers should conduct the audit of their employees’ skills although the larger team analysis for multiple roles should be done by team leaders, HR, or external talent advisors.

In an internal mobility skills audit, the goals are three-fold: 1) analyze which roles are open now; 2) rate how important each role is; and 3) identify the skills required to perform the role properly in a job profile.

Developing job profiles involves:

• Reviewing current job descriptions as a reference for the skills needed
• Considering upcoming organizational changes or future work trends
• Creating a list of competencies that clearly and accurately describe what is required to do the work

Then it’s time to conduct an inventory of your employee’s current skills.

Assessing Internal Candidates

After internal candidates for the open positions are identified, PeopleScout says it’s time to examine their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). KSAs can create a better view of a potential candidate’s strengths and weaknesses.?It is essential to create a KSA profile of each internal candidate to determine their fit for a specific role.?When identifying employees as potential internal candidates, assess these traits:

• Flexibility and desire to change roles
• Interest in professional development, taking on new projects outside of their current role, and learning new skills
• Good communicators who work well across the organization

The results from this audit should be included in a report which can be used to supplement more than your internal mobility program such as in restructuring, internal promotion, and succession planning.

Tips for a Successful Skills Audit

The AIHR article referenced above also gives ten tips for a successful skills audit.?These include:

1.??????Be clear about your objectives – take your organization’s challenges, opportunities, and goals into consideration

2.??????Define the scope – base it on your organization’s strategy and then break it into categories such as technical, leadership, and interpersonal skills including the type of information collected (certificates, performance reviews, manager reviews)

3.??????Use a competency framework – assess skills for consistency that are relevant to a specific role or function and utilize a comparison framework based on proficiency level.

4.??????Decide on an assessment method – one-to-one interviews, self-assessment surveys, collecting historical information (based on training, certification, education, and performance), or giving a formal skills test.

5.??????Start small – even in one department or team and expand further based on these results.

6.??????Ensure you are legally compliant – make sure you have the right to collect data and the ability to protect employees’ personal data, including use in accordance with region-specific laws.

7.??????Collect and analyze data – using this logical sequence: inform employees, collect data based upon agreed collection methods, and train employees to use the system if it is ongoing.

8.??????Use the insights to create short-term and longer-term hiring, training, and upskilling plans – add an assessment report summarizing unused skills, redeployment of employees, significant skills gaps, and any urgent skills needed.

9.??????Build and maintain a skills inventory – to determine how employees should develop and help you create a succession plan as well as bridge skills gaps.

10.??Finally, audit the HR department’s skills – to ensure the team conducting the audit has the necessary skills to perform a successful audit.?

Skills Tools

Below are a few skills tools I discovered while reviewing resources for this newsletter edition.?This is not an endorsement of any of these providers.

Skills Base - – touts itself as an easy-to-use data-driven platform that scales to individual organization needs.?Functionalities include:

• Skills base data library
• Skills taxonomies
• Skills mapping
• Skills assessment
• Skills development
• Skills audit

Degreed – if you are pulling data from other applications like an HCM system, ATS, or other applications that aren’t integrated, the Degreed platform integrates with these technologies and continuously collects new skills data from your workforce.?You can even run some internal promotional campaigns and ask employees to rate their skills. Degreed provides a base framework of 2,400 common skills.?In addition to self-ratings, and manager ratings, Degreed also offers peer ratings providing a 360-degree skill profile.?See how this functionality works.?You can download the Ultimate Skill Data Handbook from the bottom of this Degreed blog post.

Workday Human Capital Management Skills – Workday Skills Cloud is embedded with machine learning that empowers you to understand the skills and capabilities of your entire workforce.?It includes:

• Skills-based recommendations for jobs, learning content, and connections
• Suggests skills relevant to worker experience
• Matches candidates and workers to relevant jobs and identifies top applicants for recruiters
• Proficiency assessments

Questions for You

• What experience have you had or observed involving skills audits?
• What steps did the organization take?
• What was the outcome?

Please share your thoughts or experiences with readers related to current skills audits in the comments section below.

Our next issue will focus on the “Career Paths” element of my Career Mobility model.