SKILLS PROFILING: The Keystone of Productivity

1 WHAT IS SKILLS PROFILING? WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE?

A new paradigm has been growing in the world of commerce since the start of the century (The world of commerce has experienced a paradigm shift since the turn of the century). The new theory measures productivity as a dominant factor for the success of any business and is more important that other factors such as innovation or technology. Failure to be optimally productive in the global economy is a sure shot recipe for disaster. The source of productivity is the workforce of the company. To succeed, managements must ensure that there’s optimal scope for performance. And performance often relies on the intellectual skills and talent of an individual. It is the job of managers/decision-makers to understand the capabilities of their staff and assign responsibilities accordingly. A lack of judgment whilst hiring or assigning responsibility can result in cut into profit and serious deficiencies from quarter to quarter.

A. The Conventional Approach

Skills inventory is not a new phenomenon. In fact, HR professionals have always attempted to better define personal talents of not just candidates, but also of active employees. Gathering this talent database is easy, but the actual challenge lies in interpreting the data. And unfortunately, this is where almost every skills inventory fails. .Whilst this system may have worked in the past, mere data assimilation is not enough in the face of global competition and the need for rapid response to opportunities or emergencies.

Some common skill inventory tools include:

1. RESUMES:

Resumes are becoming increasingly insufficient to evaluate job candidates. The information offered is one dimensional and lacks depth. Resumes don’t reveal the true nature of a person and even run the risk of falling victim to the subjective analysis of a given reviewer.

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2. COMPETENCY MAPPING

Competancy mapping is expensive and time consuming; it often tends to fall flat in the commercial world where decisions have to be made rapidly and effectively. Another major problem with this method is that often only a small segment of the employee workforce is analyzed. But all of the skill resources at found within the existing corporate labor pool have to be made available to everyone and not just to one or two departments or staff levels.

3. SKILLS IN PROFESSIONAL NETWORKS

This is a broad and generic method and doesn’t give a full picture of a person’s skills or talents.

These older means of assessing skills have seen their day. They do not highlight an individual’s talent accurately and the time factor in preparing data reports is unacceptably long. An honest and comprehensive evaluation of a person’s capabilities has to be provided within a short time, and yet prove to be useful for recruitment, job assignment and training.

B. The ITSYOUR SKILLS Approach

The need for the right skills and the right temperament has paved the way for a more modern approach to assessing skill levels for proper use. Our approach towards skill management is to understand the concept of talent as deeply as possible. This includes an understanding that skills have to adapt to a dynamic and ever changing environment.

Most skill inventories or filters used to isolate talent are dated t and rely on definitions of computer programming or IT skills that are equally old. Given the rapidly changing world that we live in, it doesn’t take long for a concept or idea to become antiquated. For instance, Facebook is just a decade old website, but it has revolutionized the social media scene. Social and mobile applications have grown exponentially. Companies have need for technical knowledge that only a short while ago was completely unknown. In order to meet the demands of global competition, skills that were only starting to be used a year or so ago have to be accounted for in profiling. We are able to do that with the methodology we use as part of ITS YOUR SKILLS.

2 THE SKILLS PROFILING

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Thereare three very dynamic elements of skills profiling that we employ. The intention is to get as full a picture of skills as possible, and the means by which those skills can be sourced and identified within the workforce.

I. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

We consider the conceptual framework as a precise means of mapping skills of individuals who t cut across all of the functions and levels. It makes it that much easier to identify the most qualified candidates. It also permits efficient job assignments based on employees who have exactly the right skills needed to perform at optimal levels. We are not merely assessing a person’s technical capabilities, but understanding their behavioral traits as well. This is extremely important in a team oriented environment, particularly in large companies and those dealing with computer software.

A. Skills Profile: Functional/Technical Skills Classifications1. Specializations within a functional area.2. Principles and concepts.3. Tools and technologies.4. The domain in which the skills are deployed.5. Ordinary activities that are routinely performed within a functional role

B. Behavioral Skills.Within the conceptual framework that we have developed for users, there are sets of behavioral skills which are identified to indicate the roles decision makers ask to be performed within an organization, and how well a person’s behavioral skills operate in any given role.

C. Management And Leadership ProfileSimply put, this takes a look at an individual’s managerial leadership expertise. It considers the various styles of management and/or leadership that an individual possesses. This is extremely important because the success of any team or another working unit will depend on the type of leadership required to complete a project.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

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The conceptual framework includes an individual’s skills as well as the type of working behaviors that he/she expects. It is a complete picture that provides more insight than a resume, while at the same time permits personality insights that are close to what could be produced by Myers-Briggs or other occupation behavior tests.

II. SKILLS LIBRARY

There is nothing unusual about having skills databases. Many countries have them and these have all kinds of information as it pertains to employment and employability. The problem is that many of these are bureaucratic in nature. In other words, they very rarely change. Departments and bureaus of labor statistics establish a given title for a job and rarely change the description. That is perhaps the greatest challenge.

The global economy is rapidly changing both the playing field and the players. Many of the positions in the social media industry were not even heard of five years ago. Standardized job descriptions are not able to respond appropriately to massive innovations in industry and economy. Historically, these databases of information are resistant to rapid change and that is not going to help any employer or any job candidate, either.

Our Skills Profiling has a Skills Library. This is an exhaustive repository of skills and it moves across industries and functions as well. It is something we have prepared that is very modern and cutting edge. It responds to industry changes and advances in technology. We say this because we adhere to three major principles that are critical for any useable skills database in the modern age.

A. It is Dynamic

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A skills database in the modern age has got to be able to be updated on a routine basis. Every new mobile application or social media platform is going to create new job descriptions that have unique skills, many of which no other position has. A skills library that is constantly being updated is one that both a candidate and employment recruiter will find extremely valuable.

This doesn’t mean going to some institution and finding out what their records have about new jobs. Being dynamic means openly communicating with stakeholders that include both individuals and companies. These sources share what is immediate in the workplace. Certain computer programming positions will require unique programming languages that may have been unknown just a few years ago. The dynamic skills database is always on the lookout for the new information about jobs and job skills. That best describes the functions of our skills library: dynamic.

B. Proper ClassificationSkills information can be nothing but a large bowl of thickporridge if there is no organization to all of the data. Just like biologists classify genus and species, skills have to be categorized effectively. This makes it easier to understand the correlation between various skills. It also gives the user a better appreciation of those relationships which at times can be almost similar.

C. In-Depth AnalysisA general description of skills is often pointless. To help the person seeking a job and the recruiter seeking a candidate, an understanding of skills and individual nuances is very important. These details can be invaluable in product assignment and staffing. Going the extra mile to make sure there is a full appreciation of the type of skills pays off when the final decisions on employment or assignment are made.

The skills library we have developed is intended to be a repository of all that is needed to best understand the skills and talents of the modern workforce. We consider it to be extremely important that this be a dynamic, ever-changing collection of important data.

SKILLS LIBRARY

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What is unique about our skills library is that stakeholders are constantly being asked about changes in requirements of various positions. We also ask prospective job candidates what skills they have and make note of those that are new to the library.

III. APPLICATION

Anyone who designs a proactive service can fall in love with the nuances, and forget that what has been created must be used. It doesn’t do any good to have a skills profiling instrument that is so complicated that it cannot be understood. Complexity sometimes creates a situation where trying to implement the service becomes a tedious exercise. The application should be simple and easy to understand.

It also has to be engaging. The end user should be exciting to use the tool. It allows the interest to grow and other possible uses of the instrument will rise out from this. The global economy thrives on the here and now. The design technology that is state-of-the-art, up-to-the-minute, cutting edge is intended to be easy to use as well. That is in line with a consumer population that wants service delivered efficiently with no nagging problems attached to it.

Mobile applications in the last seven years have created a drastic change in performance expectations. People who’re on the move or in different locations during the course of the day rely on mobile applications. The smart phone in the palm of one’s hand and the tablet that hangs freely from a bag is an office all to itself. Any recruiter or job hunter would rather access a skills profiling service from a mobile device than have to go to a PC. We recognize the need for mobile access. Our application component can be used from a tablet or smartphone. Anyone who is on the move or happens to be away from the office can easily make use of our Skills Profiling from a mobile device.

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Everything comes together in our Skills Profiling instrument that relies on ever changing information that can be used both by companies and individuals. Data is in a constant state of updating with new skills continually being processed and categorized.

3 BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

What makes ITS YOUR SKILLS stand out is that individuals as well as organizations can take advantage of our Skills Profiling. It is our mission to provide something that will allow individuals to find the right company to grow their career. Organizations will quickly discover that the right people can be hired, the most productive job assignments can be made, and career paths can be paved through Skills Profiling. Something else that can come from the Skills Profiling is superior customer service, for any client or customer. Here’s how everything all comes together.

I.THE INDIVIDUAL

Anyone who is actively looking for work wants more than just a paycheck. This worker in the modern global economy wants to have his or her skills put to good use. At the same time this

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person wants to see a future that produces desired results. The introduction of social media and mobile applications has caused people to expand their respective skill sets. It shan’t be a surprise when computer programmer will not only have expertise in SQL, but also be fluent in Ruby and Python (the latter two happen to be computer languages used in the arena of mobile apps).

Those newly acquired computer skills get rusty if they are not used. A person who has spent time learning languages like JavaScript would naturally want to be able to use this expertise on a routine basis. Being trapped in a job where hard-earned skills are not put to use will cause considerable job dissatisfaction. Nobody wants to be trapped in a cubicle where their talents are not going to be used.

Skills Profiling helps a person make a better decision when it comes to assessing opportunities. He or she can provide in-depth information about the job skills and talents, and a better match of expertise to positions can result. This is where the dynamic part of skills profiling really helps. Software language that is recent is part of the database. Employers are contacted about the use of various new computer languages or skills, and their input is added to the database. A closer fit of candidate opportunity happens. An individual is given invaluable help in finding the right job. It doesn’t stop there, however.

Lifelong learning is a must in the new economic order. Anyone wanting to be successful may have to constantly upgrade his or her knowledge.That is not easy if there is no indication of what the market is looking for. Skills Profiling has a better sense of the need because we process information across industries and functions. A person can take a very quick look at what the market is asking for, knowing that the information is current up to the very minute, and enroll in the necessary additional training to compensate for any possible gaps in knowledge.

SKILL PROFILING FOR THE INDIVIDUAL

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II. COMPANIES

Management has always hoped for accurate skills inventory information and Skills Profiling will produce better job fits between open positions and candidates. Thanks to a skills library that is exhaustive in the amount of information available, a relatively quick comparison between a candidate’s skill set and the ideal can be done easily. . Highly qualified people are not going to wait for a job offer. Better talent selection means that the best people can be identified quickly, arrangements can be made for the interview process, and a job offer can be in front of that person before the competition is able to send out any feelers.

Job assignment is another aspect that is difficult and challenging. Companies do want to promote from within, but there has to be a person with the right qualifications. That includes behavioral skills and possibly the right management style. The conceptual framework of Skills Profiling makes it easier to identify if a person has the full package. It means that assignments can be given to someone who has the right knowledge base, behavioral skills necessary to fit in well with the team, and perhaps management or leadership capabilities that can create success.

Skills Profiling allows the opportunity for better talent utilization. Moreover, it can help deliver high-quality customer service.

Consider the following scenario which happens constantly in the global economy. A company has offices in Boston, St. Petersburg, and Tokyo. A software development project has been set up in such a way that work is being done on it 24/7. Just as the Boston team is finished with its daily assignment, the St. Petersburg team begins, and when it is finished for the day, Tokyo takes up where the last team left off. This creates the opportunity to provide the finished product faster to a customer. A problem suddenly happens in St. Petersburg that requires a person with a specific programming talent. The home office in New Delhi or London can quickly go to Skills Profiling and find exactly who has the needed skills. That person is contacted and a video conference is set up immediately with St. Petersburg.

There is no break in the process caused by searching for the right talent within the global company. What could have been a substantial delay is prevented because the right person is identified immediately, thanks to the simplicity inherent in the Skills Profiling application. High quality is better guaranteed and a deadline is met.

Succession planning is what every company would love to do, but is incredibly difficult to accomplish. Prospective candidates need a combination of knowledge, productive behaviors, and leadership styles to be promoted. These cannot be general in nature; the competition in the worldwide marketplace does not allow much room for any ambiguity. That is where the skills library can help. It provides information necessary to more accurately develop career paths and identify what training is needed. Individuals are better prepared for their next movement in the organization, and the right skills and behaviors are developed. It means that performance is not harmed by new people advancing into higher positions.

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4 THE COMPETITIVE EDGE

It doesn’t matter if it is an individual or a company; a competitive edge is needed. Competition for individual jobs or for market share is not going to get any easier. There has to be a way for a person to apply for a position that will best use his or her skills and knowledge, and a company needs to be able to have the right talent in the right place. The older models simply can’t do it effectively or quickly. But Skill Profiling can do both.

Moreover, our information gathering responds to the ever-changing global marketplace. New skills are added and categorized appropriately. It means that the latest mobile application programming language is right there in our databases. This helps a person apply for the best possible position, and a company to have those talent resources that are state-of-the-art.

Skills Profiling allows companies to be more efficient, produce higher levels of production, and better satisfy customer needs. In a world that relies more on knowledge and mental resources,

Skills Profiling will provide a competitive edge.

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