“The basic idea of deconstructing work has the potential to change everything HR does. You can call it a skills-based economy. As we get more and more platforms that take someone like you/me and see elements of our capabilities (skills/capabilities) that can be reconfigured, then a future tech situation is we’re all fungible. The notion of a career changes from project to project/company to company and we will all be measured by our capabilities versus the job that we do for companies. There is a question of how deeply we can see capabilities of people and the jobs that need to get done.”Dr. John Boudreau

At Ibbaka, our mission is to help organizations align talent toward their market vision. Achieving this aim will require bolstering talent management strategies with better insights into skills and competencies, and more specifically, the gaps any company will need to close in order to realize their vision. 

Talent management software comes in a suite of applications that serve different functions for various teams. How these different systems support each other and share data is a critical part of how they create value. One way to think of this is that the different applications support the employee experience. Our research suggests the employee journey map, similar to the customer journey map has the following steps, from workforce planning all the way through to succession management and back.

Each area of the Talent Management space has its own set of unique challenges and is supported by different systems. Skills and competencies are critical to each aspect of the employee experience; we believe they make the connections between the different systems.We hope this short survey provokes thinking into how each function contributes to the talent management ecosystem, and how skill insights can play a critical role. The results of the survey will influence our product strategy and roadmap. Here are a few things we want to learn: 

What are the talent management systems involved in the employee journey?

For Talent Management Professionals, what are the relationships between these various functions? How do skill insights impacts areas such as talent acquisition, compensation, performance management and succession strategies? If there are other functions that benefit from skills and competency insights, which ones should we consider?

We have done industry level research on what applications support each talent management function. Our assumption is that responses to our survey will provide us further insight into how tools are being used. We want to understand which applications lead a category or are about to emerge from it. If there are applications that are not part of talent management, but that benefit from skills insights, what are they and what role do they play in a business?Different areas of a business will have various degrees of knowledge about these systems, especially in larger organizations. We would like to understand which parts of an organization have a greater awareness of the different Talent Management systems being used and the impact these are having on the business.

How does skill and competency data integrate into these systems?

Understanding the ways in which information about skills and competencies flow across the employee experience and how this adds value at each step will inform our design. We are working to support how this works in both directions.

From Skills to Other Systems: How do we make sure that skills and competencies enrich the other systems in the Talent Management ecosystem? What data and metadata will support better insights for the users of these applications? 

From Other Systems into Skills: Alternatively, what data will enhance skill profiles and competencies in Teamfit? One of the reasons skill management has been historically difficult is that the data that informs skills is scattered across and beyond the organization. Skills are enriched through a variety of experiences that range from classroom learning to stretch roles and new assignments. We are designing TeamFit to be the place where skill data pools, gets analyzed and connected, and is then fed back out to other systems to enrich them and improve their value.

The following image illustrates one version of our thinking about how organized skill and competency data can add value to, and be enhanced by the data in other systems:

We look forward to sharing the results of our ongoing research into how skills impact various talent management functions. Stay tuned!

Ibbaka Posts on Competency Models and Competency Frameworks

• Competency models as learning plans

• From user experience to competency model design - Margherita Bacigalupo and EntreComp

• Competency framework designers on competency framework design: Jeff Griffiths on transversal and vertical skills

• Competency framework designers on competency framework design: The chunkers and the slice and dicers

• Competency framework designers on competency framework design: Victoria Pazukha

• Two podcasts on competency model design from Vancouver

• The A in KSA is for Abilities or Attitudes or Attributes?

• Do competency frameworks need competency definitions?

• Should you have a personal competency model?

• Designing a skill competency model - the Ibbaka approach

• Design research - How do people approach the design of skill and competency models?

• Designing a blueprint for your competency model framework

• From competency model design to competency model generation

• The WEF on Building a Common Language for Skills at Work

• Aligning skill and competency models with microcredentials - a conversation between Don Presant and Kul Sharma

• Three Metaphors for Skills and Competencies

• The Skills for Career Mobility - Interview with Dennis Green

• Competencies or skills - what should you assess?

• Lessons Learned Launching and Scaling Capability Management Programs

• Designing a Competency Model for Innovation Coaches

• Talent Transformation - A Conversation with Eric Shepherd, Martin Belton and Steven Forth

• Who cares about skill and competency models

• Competency Model Definitions - the IEEE ups its game

• Competency Models Made Easy - Two Simple Spreadsheets to Build Your Own Competency Models

• Simple (very simple) skill and competency models

• Individual - Team - Organizational use cases for skill and competency management

• Design decisions for developing a competency framework

• What is skill management?

• Competency models are living documents and need curation

• Some key use cases for competency model adoption

• Designing the Open Competency Model Architecture

• A third skillscape

• Building skill and competency models together

• Getting past competency model PTSD

• Co-creation of Competency Models for Customer Success and Pricing Excellence

• Competencies for Adaptation to Climate Change – An Interview with Dr. Robin Cox

• Architecting the Competencies for Adaptation to Climate Change Open Competency Model

• Introducing open competency models

• Integrating Skills and Competencies in the Talent Management Ecosystem (this post)

• Organizational values and competency models – survey results

• Why your job architecture needs a competency model

• Are values part of your competency model?

• How to build competency models

• A skill name is just a word, isn’t it?

• Current trends in skill and competency management

• Enabling internal mobility - a design thinking approach