Employee Skill Databases: Benefits, Features, and Maintenance Tips

The right skills are essential in the current market—not just for job seekers but for organizations as well. They are the greatest factor behind building a successful and resilient organization. 

For this reason, an employee skill database can bring in significant change in any organization. It helps monitor, manage, and update employees’ skills. Additionally, it supports strategic promotion and talent recruitment.

In fact, according to 89% of L&D professionals, proactive skill management is the way forward for ever-changing business requirements. One way to effectively manage talent is through an employee skill database. Read on as we explore its benefits, key features, and practical maintenance tips for long-term success.

Importance of Tracking Employee Skills

Tracking employee skills offers clear information about the employees’ capabilities, strengths, and areas of improvement. It helps identify skill gaps and explore internal mobility over hiring new employees. 

Businesses can also manage talents, plan their workforce, and upskill employees for talent development and succession planning according to their needs. 

When organizations know employees’ skills, resources can be utilized efficiently during industry shifts and advancements to stay relevant and competitive. Further, if employees are given access to respective skill databases, they can view their career path and pick up or improve skills that will help them grow. 

Benefits of Using an Employee Skill Database 

Improved Talent Management 

With an employee skill database, organizations can identify, high-potential employees based on skills, experiences, and qualifications. 

Managers and HR teams in the organization can assign them to the required urgent projects or roles, thus ensuring talents are utlized effectively.

Enhanced Workforce Planning 

The database enables tracking of all skills and shortcomings, and if there’s any opening, one can compare existing employee skills with those of the vacancy. 

This can be useful in making strategic workforce planning decisions, such as promotions and role changes. If nobody is skilled enough to fill in the role, recruitment can be considered.

Better Learning and Development Programs 

A reliable skills database offers plenty of insights about employees’ shortcomings, skill gaps, and high-demand skills. 

This can help L&D & Talent heads identify the skills that are lacking and design necessary learning and development (L&D) programs. This ensures L&D initiatives are both relevant and efficient, addressing current needs while enhancing employee engagement and skill proficiency across the organization.

A lack of a centralized platform is a big roadblock in matching the right talents for projects. Grab iMocha’s centralized employee skill database solution to find the best talents every time!

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Key Features of an Effective Employee Skill Database 

For the perfect skill database for employees in an organization, one must focus on certain features, like the following:

Skill Assessment and Tracking 

Make sure the employee skill database offers tools for regular skills assessments and tracking.

Platforms like iMocha offer an extensive assessment library. It helps assess employees’ skills regularly and in real time. It generates a report reflecting the database against the benchmark, offering the organization an accurate view of skills data.

For instance, if HR professionals or managers need to manage promotions or talent management, they can access the latest employee skills data using the generated report. This way, they can find everything on a single platform without any hassle.

Competency Mapping 

Another significant feature to look out for in an employee skill database is competency matching. It helps identify specific competencies, skills, and qualifications required to achieve specific job positions. 

If managers want to assign tasks or projects, it helps them identify employees who already possess relevant skills and match the role accordingly. 

It also helps employees know how to reach their dream job role based on their strengths and shortcomings. 

Customizable Skill Taxonomies

Customizable skill taxonomies help categorize skills according to role, department, or industry.

In iMocha’s Skills Intelligence Cloud, you can get a robust, customizable, industry-standard skill taxonomy that is effective for an organization’s job architecture and other particular needs.

For instance, if an organization is in the IT industry, one can group skills under different categories, such as cybersecurity, project management, or software development. With the help of such structured organization, one can simplify skill search and ensure swift and accurate skill identification of the necessary expertise.

Struggling to identify skill gaps? iMocha’s platform tracks them and helps plan training, aligning goals while boosting productivity and engagement.

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How to Build and Maintain an Employee Skill Database 

For organizations focused on building and maintaining an skill database of employees, here’s a structured strategy with continuous updates and careful planning:

Creating a Skills Inventory 

The first step is to identify all the skills available to employees. Undertake these steps for this.

• Conduct interviews, assessments, and surveys to collect information regarding employees’ technical and soft skills.
  
• Choose a suitable platform that offers tools to track skills and visualize data on the same platform. iMocha, one of the top employee skills database platforms, is an amazing option for this.
  
• Depending on different departments, roles, and even projects, categorize different skills necessary for the organization. Define the skill categories according to them, as it’ll help in efficient database structuring.
  

Regular Skills Assessments

The next step is to conduct skill assessments regularly on employees. This keeps the database updated, accurate, and relevant. It also shows whether there are serious skill gaps or if any employee picked an important skill.

It can be conducted once, twice, or four times a year, depending on industry changes, to track any rapid skill level change.

Maintain Skills Profile of Employees

Update employee skill profiles regularly. This will give employees an overview of their capabilities, skills, and proficiency compared to the needs of their current role or one they desire.

This provides employees with clear insights about their skills, which assists their career planning and creates a growth culture.

Further, managers also know which employee is better suited for which role. The skills profile offers ample insights when considering internal mobility, promotions, and suitable candidates for projects.

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Final Words

Every organization requires an effective employee skill database to navigate through changing business dynamics.

It supports L&D initiatives, talent management, and succession planning. The database also motivates employees to strive harder, creating a growth culture in the organization.

The iMocha platform brings a range of skill databases and management tools, including skill assessments, competency mapping, skill taxonomies, and much more. Our solutions empower organizations to effectively manage and maintain their skill data.

Schedule a demo to discover how iMocha can enhance skill management and support strategic workforce planning.

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FAQ

What is an employee skill database?

It is a unified platform to document and manage employees’ skills and qualifications. It helps organizations manage talents by enhancing their learning and development, capabilities, and decision-making skills.

How do I identify employee skills?

Evaluations and assessments can identify employee skills. iMocha offers an exceptional assessment library that accurately evaluates 3000+ skills.

How does an employee skills database benefit businesses?

An employee skills database helps businesses by offering the following:

• Custom training and development according to required skills
• Better internal mobility and employee assignments with a clear idea of everyone’s skills 
• Improved succession planning as the database highlights employees with the best leadership abilities
• Enhanced recruitment efforts with the database showing skills gaps and existing skill sets 
• Better staff retention by providing career and skill development opportunities, which keeps employees motivated.