Your team is one of your business’s most valuable assets, and as a leader, it’s your job to determine how best to maximize it.

However, it can be difficult to accurately assess your employees’ skills and experience, especially since they may have worked across multiple positions and fields before joining your organization. You could be underestimating their capabilities without even realizing it.

One way to ensure you make the most of your company’s workforce is by developing a skills database, a comprehensive catalog of all your employees’ abilities, qualifications, and educational backgrounds. With this tool, you may be able to pinpoint individuals suitable for important projects, build optimal teams, and fill open positions with the best candidates, whether they’re in-house talent or outside applicants.

What you’ll

A skills database is a powerful instrument you can use to bolster your company in many ways. For one, it can enable you to identify individuals who have the requisite technical skills for a particular project or who would work most effectively as a team based on their personalities, communication styles, or emotional intelligence. Conversely, a skills database can also highlight your employees’ weaknesses. Perhaps they’re missing certain key abilities to perform optimally in their role, or maybe there are simply areas where they could stand to improve. In identifying these deficiencies, you can better support your employees in their growth, either by providing the necessary training or by encouraging them to pursue it on their own.

Your database will also come in handy when you need to fill an open position. It can help you locate internal candidates, including ones you may not have otherwise thought of, who either have the skills or the capacity for the job so you can promote from within. This can both boost employee morale and save you the time and expense of conducting an external applicant search. And if you must extend your hunt outside your organization, your database can help you determine which skills applicants should have for the roles you are hiring for.

Finally, you can utilize your database to take a proactive approach to your workforce. In addition to your current employees’ abilities, document the skills that are essential for each role of your company. Doing so can better reveal any existing gaps, such as in social media marketing, which can then allow you to train your employees or, if needed, hire new talent who possess these abilities. In addition, you can use this outline of required skills to create defined career paths you can share with your staff. This will give them a clearer vision of their growth possibilities within your company while also providing your human resources department another tool to use for recruiting outside candidates.

Building your database

The first step in creating a skills database is deciding on your method. If your company isn’t very large, you could use a simple Excel spreadsheet. Otherwise, consider skills-management software like AG5, SkillNet, or Skills Base, which can make it easier to manage and utilize the information you collect. For instance, such software can give you the ability to quickly search your database, receive alerts when employees’ qualifications expire, and create helpful reports and analytics on their performance and skills.

Once you’ve decided on the structure of your database, you can begin building it by adding a profile—or skills matrix—for every employee. In each one, include their experience, degrees and certifications, positions held, accomplishments, career goals and professional interests, hard (technical) proficiencies, and soft skills like public speaking, persistence, and adaptability. There are several ways you can gather this information, such as by referencing your employees’ resumes or LinkedIn profiles. You should also consult with the employees themselves to get more accurate and updated data and with your HR department and team leads for a more objective perspective.

Keep it current

As with most things in business, your employees’ skills won’t remain static, so neither should your database. You should make sure to update it regularly, such as when employees change positions, earn qualifications, or exit your company. The more up-to-date your database is, the more effective it will be as a tool to help you strategically manage your workforce and lead your company to greater success.

TAKE ACTION:
Start building an employee skills database for your organization today.