Skills Tracking Enables More Effective Resource and Talent Management

1. Resource Management provides information needed to support an appropriate staffing process. A good Resource Management methodology requires the ability to track skill needs for projects, identify available skill needs for upcoming projects, provide available skills usage information to accommodate project resource shifts, and plan for future project needs. A quality skill tracking solution provides for the ability to capture, analyze, and produce skills information supporting all these needs.

This includes, by resource, what skills are being deployed, for what project, for how long, and what skills and resources remain on the bench.

2. Talent Development and Management – provides data to analyse and determine future workforce requirements as input for recruiting and employee development. Drawing upon a data-based forecast, skills tracking will support a good talent development and management system enabling analysis of future employee skill gaps, correlated to employee career desires and skills development plans. Training, on-boarding, and recruiting all benefit from this analysis and tracking of skills.

3. Skills mix management (strategic resource planning) – a key element of talent management is managing the skills mix. Gaining an aggregate view at a granular level of future skill needs enables the enterprise to plan strategies for resource acquisition, cost planning, and location balancing. Skills' tracking enables the ability to analyse the optimisation of skills sourcing for cost and location needs. Examples would be: can we source certain skills from lower cost labour markets, or; can we alter the location mix of future hires to lower travel costs and speed availability of personnel or; can we alter our peak-load strategy to minimise fluctuations in employee levels by better optimising partners and contractors?

A remaining point to mention is that having on-going data maintenance / verification process is essential to supporting the long term viability of your skills tracking process.