The workforce has been changing greatly over the past decade, and will continue to change as the years go by.
With the increased number of women in the workforce, the higher number of immigrant workers, and change in demographic of the population, effective human capital management is becoming more important than ever.
The changing demographic is also affecting the availability of skilled workers in labor force. With the impeding labor shortage, skills management is a crucial aspect of effective HR management that should be employed by all organizations.
Considering the pertinence of the topic at hand, we decided to offer some advice!
Here are a few things you should know about skills management, and some areas where AtmanCo can help.
What is Skills Management?
I know you’re thinking the term seems self-explanatory, but skills management is not “the managing of skills”.
With the looming labor shortage in North America, it is important to identify what skills are possessed by your employees and what skills are required for a position, and then determine how to close this gap. Identifying the gap, determining how to minimize it, and making sure the development plans are aligned with your organization’s strategy is skills management.
Armed with this definition, here are critical aspects for effective skills management, and the areas where AtmanCo can help.
What to measure for effective skills management
For every position within an organization, there is a set of skills that an employee must possess in order to perform their tasks successfully. They require a certain level of education, work experience, certifications, and even training and competencies. It is likely that many organizations with an effective HR department already record this information in their employees’ personnel file, however, is this enough?
Consider this: Two new graduates with the same education, qualifications, and no previous work-related experience. Are they going to perform the same? The answer: absolutely not! And here’s why: Personality, hence, the thing that defines who we are, what we do, and why we do it. It is our attitudes, motivations, and natural reflexes towards different situations and everything that surrounds us. It’s what makes us different.
There are no “good” or “bad” personalities in general, and certainly not in business. There is, however, the right personality for the right position. There are certain traits and characteristics that make individuals naturally better (and more comfortable) at doing specific tasks. For example, having results-oriented and assertive extroverts is fantastic for a sales job. Put that person in a customer service position, however, and you might watch your customer satisfaction ratings drop.
So with this in mind, doesn’t it make sense to record your employees’ personality traits in addition to their education and experiences? Why wouldn’t organizations use that information to determine their employees’ fit for the job and the company? Why not have this information at hand to identify who has the most potential, and how to further train and develop them? While I may not know the answer to these questions, I do know that organizations should be doing this; and they can.
How to measure and record personality for skills management
Considering skills management is a three step process (identifying what employees have, identifying what the job needs, and closing the gap), let’s examine how AtmanCo can optimize each area.
Area 1: Identifying what employees have
Atman’s psychometric test is a scientifically validated assessment tool that measures individual’s traits and characteristics on different dimensions.
The scales are bipolar, and represent the tendency and natural reflexes of an individual. With the automatically generated grid, the results of the Atman test are clearly displayed, easy to interpret, and may be exported out of AtmanCo’s technologically-advanced platform into any file format.
Using the results of the Atman test, organisations will be able to identify which employees have the right personality for any position within the company.
Area 2: Identifying what the job needs
AtmanCo’s solutions allow organizations to generate a standard for any position and use that norm when selecting future candidates.
Using the results of the Atman test of their employees, organizations can select their top performers and use their results to identify the most important traits for a specific position.
For example, if an analysis of the results of an organization’s top-performing financial analysts showed that 92% of them are organized, detail-oriented, and are faithful to policies and procedures, then you can be sure that these specific traits are crucial to perform the job successfully and to the highest standard.
Area 3: Closing the gap
Taking the example of the top-performing financial analysts, we have identified the important traits and characteristics needed to perform the job. Now, assume you need to fill a position within that department, and you want to do it internally. You can use the database you created of the results of your employees’ Atman tests to find potential candidates who possess those desired characteristics.
After you have identified these candidates, you can now be rest assured that the time being spent in training and development is not wasted, but is being capitalized on.
The results of the test can also be used to further develop your current employees and improve their performance. Organizations will be able to clearly see which areas are proving to be the most challenging to its employees, and can effectively and efficiently invest in proper development.
AtmanCo’s results also provide information to optimize training initiatives. By clearly demonstrating employees’ thinking structure and motivation, organizations can provide their employees with the proper training to ensure they are motivated to learn, and that knowledge is being transferred to them.
In conclusion, AtmanCo’s solutions can help you with your skills management, and reduce your organization’s vulnerability towards the imminent shortage of labor.
AtmanCo’s solutions contribute and add value at every stage of the skills management process; be it 1) Identifying what your employees have, 2) Identifying what the job needs, and 3) Closing the gap between the two. Try AtmanCo’s platform today and meet your skills management needs!