What is a Skills Taxonomy and How Can It Help Your Business?

A skills taxonomy is a way to classify and organize workplace skills into clusters to gauge which competencies employees have and which they need to cultivate. Essentially, these structured lists help management identify and track skills to better allocate resources and worker training opportunities.

A skills taxonomy is a powerful tool that helps manufacturers grow their employees’ skillsets while monitoring how they develop over time. In a nutshell, creating a successful skills taxonomy is the perfect solution for closing knowledge gaps and highlighting which skills are crucial for employee development and hiring.

Learn more about skills taxonomies and how they can take your manufacturing firm to the next level in the following sections:

What a skills taxonomy is
Benefits of skills taxonomies
How to build a skills taxonomy
How to create a workplace that values skills taxonomies

What a skills taxonomy is

Skills taxonomies help categorize and group competencies into clusters. Having this classification system in place makes it easier to measure workers’ current expertise and close any learning gaps.

Think of a skills taxonomy as a type of Venn diagram that illustrates the overarching job role and the different skills needed to fulfill that position. Each skill cluster should be a circle in the diagram, with the intersecting part representing the competencies needed for that job role.

For example, managers who are evaluating the skills of a machine operator may include the name of the position and its description and link several clusters to it with the appropriate skills.

It’s important to note that taxonomy clusters have a hierarchy to them, as certain skills within each cluster are ranked. They are meant to transform simple job descriptions into concise groupings of skills that can be tracked and improved over time.

You can boost employee expertise by implementing skills intelligence, which is the process of learning who has which skills, analyzing how they are applying them to current roles, and enhancing training opportunities to close learning gaps.

Benefits of skills taxonomies

Tracking employee skills is crucial in today’s changing manufacturing landscape. While some jobs are being replaced by automation, others are becoming more heavily influenced by technology. Whatever the case may be, it’s imperative for leadership to rethink their talent strategy.

This is where a skills taxonomy can help. Some benefits of creating one include:

Better skills assessment of current and potential job candidates
Tactical upskilling and reskilling programs
Insight into job performance and areas of improvement
Improved talent management planning

How to build a skills taxonomy

Creating a skills taxonomy is a great way to stay ahead of the competition by attracting and retaining high-quality employees. What competencies your taxonomy should contain and how they should be organized will depend on the needs of your manufacturing organization.

Some things to think about when creating one are:

What role am I trying to fill and which skills are needed to fulfill it?
What type of candidate is best suited for that role?
Which skills can be cultivated to better meet the expectations of that position?

Start by developing a skills assessment methodology for current and future employees. This can help identify which skills and candidates are the best matches for certain positions.

Keep in mind that your skills taxonomy will need to be updated on a continual basis. You’ll want to ensure workers are meeting company-wide goals and objectives, which change over time. Having a reliable system for identifying and tracking employee skills can help drive operational efficiency and improve everyday frontline processes.

How to create a workplace that values skills taxonomies

Today, it’s vital to build a business that prioritizes talent management. You can create this kind of work culture by offering training opportunities to retain and grow employees. Skills taxonomies can support such a culture, helping to shape how things are run on the production floor and who manages them. and.

Although there is no standardized procedure for creating the perfect skills taxonomy-based work culture, the following steps can give you a better idea of how to get started.

Step 1: Put together a team to oversee skills taxonomies

Developing and monitoring a skills taxonomy should be a continuous endeavor since it supports improvements in your staff and production output. Managers can assemble teams to manage skills taxonomies for each department.

Step 2: Create a skills library

A skills library is basically an inventory of every skill throughout a company. To build a list of skills, start by going through job summaries, worker assessments, and other documents to gauge what is appropriate to include. Keep in mind that the library will need to be updated when new roles are filled or when new candidates are hired.

Third-party vendors like Augmentir offer the perfect software solution for building a skills library that is customized based on your unique needs.

Step 3: Integrate skills-based tactics to all HR processes

A properly executed skills taxonomy can help with decision-making across the company, from assigning learning and development opportunities to hiring and allocating work.

Applying a skills-based approach to different HR processes can assist leadership with better identifying and analyzing skill data to make important talent-management decisions.

Step 4: Pick the right skills software

There are plenty of skills taxonomy software options on the market. However, not every solution will be the right fit for you. The best software should help a manufacturer streamline their operations while evaluating, maintaining, and growing employee skills.

Rest assured, Augmentir offers a smarter way to manage the skills of your workforce. Our AI-powered connected worker solution can effectively digitize and optimize skills taxonomies to help you gain better insight into job performance and worker productivity.

Request a live demo to fix the skill gaps in your team today!