Why is Skills Management important? And how can you succeed in your strategy?

Many companies today lack both structure and knowledge of how they handle their most important asset - the combined expertise of the company. Due to the rapid development of technology, the relative demand for skills, and the distribution of hard and soft skills, has been altered. The dynamic market has put a strain on companies, and they have had to act quickly to maintain market demand. During the last quarter, we have seen a rise in both giggers and huge enterprise companies joining the platform. This shows that Skills Management is not solely a problem for big corporations with 2000+ employees, it is also a challenge that smaller firms have to deal with. Since employment forms are becoming more flexible, many companies start building their “network capital” with both internal and external competencies, in order to secure delivery capacity. There needs to be a structure to quickly find internal as well as external competence, which adds another dimension into the efficiency in skills management. What tomorrow’s winners have understood is that skills management is a true growth engine, helping managers identify available skills at a detailed level, in order to make the right managerial decisions with regards to allocation, assignments, reskilling, upskilling etc. Individuals get matched to the right opportunities, driving individual, as well as collective, growth. All in all, this contributes to the organisation’s growth.

How Can Skills Management be Utilized?

KNOW YOUR SKILLS

In an ever changing market with rapid digitalisation and new needs amongst customers, new market trends arise and skills become outdated with time. Companies need to stay relevant and aware in order to maintain their market attractiveness towards a wide base of customers. By inventorying and knowing your skill supply, you can get a more clear view of current and future market demands and trends, and which skills need to be developed and upgraded in accordance with market trends. With this data you can make quicker managerial decisions, putting you pole position. Important to note is that workforces are dynamic, changing in shape and size as the business grows. Therefore, make sure to continuously update your skill inventory so that it gives an accurate reflection of your current workforce.

SHOW YOUR SKILLS The core of “Show your skills” lies within the visualization of skills. By demystifying skills, everyone gets the same opportunities to make their knowledge and ambitions visible. Skills Management increases the visibility of every employee as their profile gives management an indication of what they want to learn, need to learn and what their dream assignments are. Match talents with the right challenge, both within and between companies. This empowers employees by giving them the steering wheel to their own growth and success. Employees can connect with projects and business opportunities that match with their skills and ambitions, further leading to heightened motivation at the workplace as everybody gets a say in which assignments they want to take on.

GROW YOUR SKILLS

People naturally have different attributes and competencies, be it due to upbringing, education or experiences. Today we see that no attribute is chosen over the other, instead, many industries have started to comprehend that a mix of attributes is the key to success. Companies need to procure a healthy mix of people and skills in order to cover the increasing demands on the market and the ever growing needs of the customers. The first step to finding the right sets of skills which can complement the existing workforce is to identify gaps between supply and demand. When a skill-gap has been

identified, companies know in detail which skills they need to recruit, which applicants are the best fit for the team and if it should be brought in internally or externally. When the right sets of skills have been brought in, managers need to keep track of developmental needs. For a business to grow, managers need to keep track of skills and identify which skills need to be re-skilled or up-skilled to meet the market demand. With a skill inventory, managers together with their employees can easily predict which skills need to be developed over time.

How to succeed with your Skill Inventory

In “knowledge-intensive” industries where the core business activity involves selling services based on individuals’ sets of skills, it is surprising to see that few companies work with their Skills Management in a structured manner. Most companies work ad-hoc with their skills, and it often turns into an excel spread-sheet circus that becomes a time consuming issue/task. We clearly see that businesses are moving from building a 100% employee driven business, to a business that now

includes subcontractors/giggers/partnerships as part of their sales/delivery capacity. The lack of control over and knowledge about the skill inventory can result in the supply not being used to its full potential. Managing the external “network capital” of skills in a structured manner opens up both new sales channels and access to expertise - the knowledge and overview of the potentials is a booster for growing the business. The first step to successful Skills Management is creating a skill inventory. A skill inventory should contain; 1) A summary the employee’s past; previous assignments, employers, experiences 2) The status of present skills; their skills, a grading of each skill, which skills are becoming outdated 3) The future; dream assignment, what do the want to learn, what do they want to work with These data points provide you with a snapshot of the current skills and capabilities of your workforce, as well as current and future skill gaps, and which decisions have to be made moving forward.

Three tips on how to succeed with Skills Management

1. Transparency; identify skills

and ambitions!

Make it easy for everyone in the organization to show their competences and ambitions. With a digital platform, skills become visible and searchable, which enhances transparency. The structured data points provide you with a clear overview of your most important asset - the company’s overall competence - and how it should be handled.

2. Match the right skills with

the right projects

To really succeed with your projects, you need to have the right person on the right assignment. Skills, ambitions and availability is the key. Choose a digital platform that helps you succeed with matching, and optimize the utilization rate.

3. Use external skills to grow

- create your network of freelancers and partners

Build your network of freelancers and partners in a structured way to increase your delivery capacity. Even if you don’t have the internal skills at hand, use your network to fill out eventual skill gaps. Growing competition and opportunities in the labour market place have enabled prospects to choose whether to join the lucrative freelance world or move to a competitor. The increased amount of options has made it harder for companies to recruit talents and retain their present skill supply. This means that every company needs to develop a strong employee value proposition to be able to compete on the labour market and reach out to top talents. Individualized personal development is a strong EVP which acts as a basis for motivation moving forward. Making sure that your workforce stays motivated and engaged at the workplace is key to minimizing staff turnover, as employees often leave due to lack of growth opportunities. Everybody knows that high staff turnover is costly, and it is in everybody’s interest to keep the costs associated with layoffs and staff turnover as low as possible. Thus, Skills Management should be a priority for all organisations.

About Cinode

Cinode has over ten thousand users in 20+ countries. In Sweden, the company has more than half of the Swedish listed consulting companies as customers, and they are now growing in other segments, such as retail and telecom. The company is growing rapidly among both one-man companies and large knowledge-intensive organizations. The goal is to have one million users on the platform by 2025. To reach this goal, and to help more organisations excel in their Skills Management, Cinode is going global. The company is currently at the forefront when it comes to Skills Management in Sweden, and now they are hoping to become global thought leaders within the field.