What is Skills Intelligence? Why is it Important?

Let’s be honest and address the elephant in the room.

The entire recruitment market is driven by skills. Experience, qualifications, and certifications have just become the frosting on the cake.

Having said that, recruiters can use pre-employment assessment tests to hire an applicant based on their skills and be done with their work.

But what most people do not know is that it is a year-round job for HRs and hiring managers to keep a track of their employees’ doing and how are they performing. Whether they need to reskill, redeploy, or hire new people altogether. 

Now you as an HR professional cannot go on inspecting every other employee in the company for their skills. It is IMPOSSIBLE.

You need to gain a deeper understanding of employee skill sets, dive into their strengths and weaknesses and take a step accordingly, for their future.

The language of growth and success for every organization is — skills. And, skills intelligence enables companies to effectively identify, nurture, and provide talent to dynamically fulfill organizational demands. Even more importantly, it gives you the confidence and speed to make decisions that are crucial to your business. But how can you actually obtain such insights?

Defining Skills Intelligence

Simply said, skills intelligence is the ability to identify who on your team possesses what abilities and how to better utilize and strengthen internal talent. 

You can do this to rebuild the two-way investment between the company and the employee and to foster a strong sense of camaraderie. 

The most important tool in your management toolbox is skills intelligence in today's challenging tech landscape and worker-led economy. 

The majority of businesses cannot afford to lose money due to high turnover rates and poor training programs. Understanding your team's strengths and shortcomings isn't always simple unless you're a leader with limitless resources and few duties.

How does Skills Intelligence Work?

This approach begins by recording and monitoring which employees have particular skills. This information enables management to better utilize and develop internal talent as well as to make sure the proper person is assigned to each position.

As a result, businesses can maximize employee training and take decisions on actual job performance to help optimize employee training and upskilling or reskilling opportunities. Skills intelligence leverages Artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and uncover hidden patterns in workforce data, opening up a wide range of chances to enhance your business.

Another problem that surfaces is — skill relationships. Let me give you an example as stated by Lighthouse Research and Advisory.

Let's assume that we agree that the most crucial trait for managers to cultivate and employ is leadership. However, leadership is a collection of interrelated skills, not a single skill. A leader's ability to lead must include traits like agility, delegation, and authenticity.

But what if we disagree that communication is the most important leadership skill? As you might have guessed, communication also encompasses a variety of related skills. Things like storytelling, verbal communication, and positive reinforcement.

Consider for a moment how many common skills leadership and communication skill share. This deeper exploration is necessary to demonstrate how challenging it would be for anyone of us, even the most data-driven and analytical minds, to gather and comprehend this information, particularly within the company.

But AI can.

Employers can go beyond simply tracking skills by implementing machine learning and artificial intelligence technology in the correct ways, opening up new possibilities for action-oriented talent strategies.

The most up-and-coming use case of applying skills intelligence at your company is to identify the knowledge and skill gap and take personalized steps to rectify the situation.

Benefits of Skills Intelligence

Applying skills intelligence at your workplace is a win-win for both the employee and yourself. The employee wants to learn, grow and excel and they start to think that you care and you as an employer can take better business decisions and strategize your plans effectively. Nevertheless, a few pointers of skills intelligence benefits include

1. Skill Mapping

HR and business management may now reskill and upskill employees more successfully to match changing business demands and objectives thanks to AI. Action-oriented and futuristic talent practices are made possible by using cloud sourcing as a paradigm to create a skills assessment matrix. 

A company, team, or department can gain a visual understanding of the talents each individual possesses through the use of skills mapping.

2. Skill Quantification

The AI-powered skills assessment mechanism goes above and beyond contemporary hiring practices like video interviews, which can introduce bias as people from different backgrounds may experience subjective evaluation, and as a result prejudice and discrimination may creep in. 

It helps quantify the skill at all levels. Interviews can then be provided as a second layer after this is completed. Quantifying skills can also help in choosing the best applicant.

3. Diversity & Inclusion

Organizations can embrace diversity and inclusion. thanks to the AI-powered skills intelligence approach. Processes for talent management become stronger and more effective. 

4. Increased workforce adaptability

A workforce with strong skills intelligence is more capable of adapting to new technologies, processes, and business needs, making the organization more agile and resilient.

5. Better talent management

Skills intelligence enables organizations to identify and develop the skills needed for success, making it easier to attract, retain, and manage top talent.

6. Improved organizational competitiveness

By staying ahead of the curve with regard to skills and capabilities, organizations can stay competitive and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

7. Enhanced innovation

A workforce with strong skills intelligence is more equipped to drive innovation, solve problems, and drive progress, leading to improved business results.

 Probable Use Cases of Skills Intelligence

Skill profiling and assessment tools can be used in HR departments to evaluate employee skills and identify skill gaps.

Job matching platforms that use skills intelligence to match job requirements with candidate skills and suggest suitable job candidates.

Customized learning and development programs designed using skills intelligence to address individual skill needs.

Market analysis tools that provide insight into skills and job demand trends in a specific industry or region.

Competitor analysis platforms that track the skills and strengths of competitors to inform business strategy.

These are some examples of skills intelligence and how they can benefit your business. We will be back with more elaborate use cases and unique ideas that you can leverage with skills intelligence.