Product Archives - Skills Base

Skills Gap Analysis: The Definitive Guide for Modern Enterprises

Nick — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:57:04 +0000

The traditional approach to human resources is failing. For decades, organizations have managed their most valuable asset—their people—using tools designed for the industrial era. We treat employees as static entries in a spreadsheet, defined by rigid job titles, historical credentials, and annual reviews that are obsolete before the ink dries.

In a global economy where the half-life of a professional skill has dropped to a mere five years, this static model is not just inefficient; it is dangerous. If you are relying on job titles to understand your workforce, you are managing a fiction. You are flying blind into a market that demands agility.

If you are a CxO, an HR leader, or a People Manager, you are likely currently in “problem-solving mode.” You are facing a Skills Gap—the widening chasm between what your organization needs to achieve its strategic goals and the actual, verified capabilities of your workforce today.

This guide is your antidote to the “way we’ve always done it.” It is a comprehensive blueprint for conducting a Skills Gap Analysis that actually drives ROI. We move beyond the buzzwords to build a digital model of your workforce capabilities.

What is a Skills Gap Analysis? (The Real Definition)

At its core, a Skills Gap Analysis is the process of comparing your organization’s current workforce capabilities against the skills required to meet your business objectives.

However, at Skills Base, we define it with more precision: It is the identification of the strategic delta between verified proficiency and operational demand.

It is not a subjective “feeling” that a team is struggling. It is not a “Training Needs Analysis” (which focuses only on L&D). It is a data-driven diagnostic that uncovers exactly where your talent architecture is failing to support your business reality. It answers the critical questions that keep executives awake at night:

Do we have the talent to launch this product in Q3?
Why is our engineering velocity slowing down despite hiring more engineers?
Are we overspending on contractors because we don’t know who has these skills internally?

A true analysis provides Skills Intelligence. It moves beyond high-level charts to understand the “so what” behind the numbers. It is the foundation of Skills Gap Analysis itself—a tool that empowers everyone from the CEO to the front-line employee to make smarter talent decisions.

The Cost of the Invisible Gap

The “status quo” of talent management is expensive. Most organizations only realize they have a skills gap when it is too late—when a project fails, a key employee resigns, or a competitor out-maneuvers them.

The Recruitment Burden: Recent SHRM data indicates the average cost per hire is over $4,700, but the “true” cost—including lost productivity, onboarding, and ramp time—is often three to four times the role’s salary. When you hire externally for a gap you could have filled internally, you are leaking capital.
The L&D Black Box: Without a clear analysis, Learning and Development (L&D) spend is often wasted on “blanket” training. Research from Gartner shows that 70% of employees report they lack the skills needed for their jobs, despite billions spent on generic LMS platforms.
The Obsolescence Risk: The World Economic Forum reports that 50% of all employees need reskilling to match the pace of technology. If you are not mapping these gaps today, you are planning for a future with an obsolete workforce.

How to Conduct a Skills Gap Analysis (The 6-Step Methodology)

We break the old habit of manual data collection and “gut feel” estimations. We replace it with a structured, contextual, and connected six-step process.

Step 1: Build the Target Model (The Taxonomy)

You cannot measure what you haven’t defined. Most companies fail at the first hurdle because they rely on generic job descriptions downloaded from the internet. To succeed, you must build a bespoke skills taxonomy.

This is the dictionary of your organization’s value. It reflects your unique language, your competitive edge, and your specific operational needs.

Be Specific: Do not list “Leadership.” That is too vague to measure. List “Agile Project Management,” “Cloud Architecture (AWS),” or “Conflict Resolution in Distributed Teams.”
Define Proficiency: What does “expert” look like in your context? A Level 4 Python Developer at a bank looks different from a Level 4 Python Developer at a startup. Use a standardized scale (e.g., 1–5) to ensure that when a manager in Sydney says a developer is “proficient,” it means the same thing to a director in London.
Avoid “Soft Skill” Fluff: Treat human skills with the same rigor as technical skills. “Communication” is vague; “Technical Documentation for API Integration” is a measurable skill.

Step 2: Map to Business Architecture (The Alignment)

This a key architectural step. You must create clear connections between talent and operations. Mapping is the process of aligning your data model to the way your business actually functions.

A list of skills is just data. A map of skills is intelligence.

Link Skills to Roles: Define which skills are “core” (mandatory) versus “aspirational” (nice to have) for specific roles. Gartner reports that the number of skills required for a single job is increasing by 10% year-over-year.
Link Skills to Teams and Locations: A “Customer Success Manager” in the US might need “Spanish Language Proficiency,” while the same role in the UK needs “GDPR Compliance.” Your map must reflect this nuance.
Link Skills to Workflows: Map capability data directly to your operational goals. If your strategic goal is “Migrate to the Cloud,” you must map the specific skills (Azure, AWS, Docker, Kubernetes) required to execute that goal.

The Result: When a gap appears, you know exactly which business unit is at risk. You move from saying “We lack Java skills” to “Our Auckland delivery team lacks the specific Java skills required for the Q3 banking project.”

Step 3: Measure Current Capability (The Assessment)

Now that you have the target, you must inventory the reality. You need to move from static resumes to a dynamic view of verified capability using Skills Assessment software.

Self-Assessment: Start with the employee. Ask them to rate their proficiency against the taxonomy you built. This engages them in the process.
The Verification Layer: Self-assessment is useful, but verified data is the gold standard. Use manager reviews or subject matter expert (SME) verification to confirm true strengths. This eliminates the “Dunning-Kruger” effect where novices overestimate their ability.
Capture Interest: A gap is not just about what people can’t do; it is about what they want to do. Mapping employee interest levels allows you to close gaps through motivation rather than mandate. If you have an engineer who is a novice in AI but has a high interest in learning it, that is your solution, not a problem.

Step 4: Analyze the Delta (The Matrix)

Once you have your “target” (Step 1 & 2) and your “actuals” (Step 3), you must visualize the delta. This is best achieved through a Skills Matrix.

Visualize Side-by-Side: A matrix allows you to instantly spot team strengths and critical gaps. You can see, for instance, that while your Engineering team is 90% proficient in Python, they are only 10% proficient in the Cybersecurity protocols required for your next release.
Leverage AI Intelligence: This is where Skills Lens changes the game. Manual analysis of thousands of data points is impossible. Our AI-powered “agents” analyze your workforce trajectory. Instead of staring at a 500-row spreadsheet, Skills Lens tells you: “You are at risk of missing your deadline because only two people have the ‘Cloud Security’ verification required for this project.”

Step 5: Execute the Action Plan (The Fix)

An analysis without action is just noise. Once you identify a gap, you have three strategic levers to pull. Do not pull them randomly; use the data to decide.

Upskill and Reskill (Build): Target your L&D budget exactly where the gaps are. Stop sending everyone to the same leadership seminar. Assign specific training to the specific individuals who need it to close a specific gap. Gartner data shows that 33% of the skills present in an average 2019 job posting are already obsolete—continuous building is the only way to keep up.
Internal Mobility (Borrow): Use your data to find “hidden experts.” Perhaps a marketing manager has a verified skill in data analysis that isn’t being used. Deploy them to a data project. This is faster and cheaper than hiring. Deloitte found that skills-based organizations are 107% more likely to place talent effectively.
Strategic Recruitment (Buy): When you must go external, do so with surgical precision. Create a job description based on the exact gap you need to fill, not a generic template. This reduces time-to-hire and ensures the new hire actually solves the problem.

Step 6: Embed, Learn, and Iterate (The Culture)

A skills gap analysis is not a “one and done” project; it is a continuous loop. To drive lasting ROI, you must embed this process into your organizational culture.

Continuous Updates: We challenge the “annual review” model. Skills change too fast for annual cycles. Encourage employees to update their profiles as they complete projects or certifications. This keeps your digital workforce model real-time.
The Feedback Loop: Use your findings to refine Step 1 and 2. If you find your “expert” criteria for a specific skill didn’t lead to project success, update your taxonomy.
Cultural Integration: Make skills visibility a benefit, not a surveillance tool. When employees see that their skill data leads to internal promotions, project opportunities, and personalized growth, they become active participants.
Measure Success: Track the ROI. Are you hiring less externally? Is project velocity increasing? Is employee retention improving? Use these insights to prove value upward to the board.

Winning Over the Committee

A skills gap analysis affects everyone. To succeed, you must demonstrate value to three distinct groups in your buying committee.

For the CxO: Driving ROI and Reducing Risk

Executives do not care about “skills” in a vacuum; they care about capability. They need to know if the workforce can execute the three-year strategic plan.

The Value Prop: We show you that “talent risk” is “business risk.” According to PwC, 74% of CEOs are concerned about the availability of key skills. By identifying gaps early, we prevent costly project overruns and ensure the organization remains agile. We provide the “So What?” behind the data, turning HR metrics into executive intelligence.

For HR Leaders: Efficiency and Strategy

HR is tired of being the “spreadsheet police.” They spend too much time chasing data and not enough time on strategy.

The Value Prop: We automate the collection and verification of data. We provide a platform that integrates into existing workflows, meaning HR becomes a strategic partner that provides verified data the board can actually trust. You stop guessing and start knowing.

For the CxO: Driving ROI and Reducing Risk

If the end-user doesn’t see value, the data will be poor.

The Value Prop: People leaders gain a tool to coach their direct reports objectively. Employees gain a “career roadmap.” They can see exactly which skills they need to develop to reach the next level, turning the gap analysis from a “test” into an “opportunity.” Gallup research shows that individuals who use their strengths every day are six times more likely to be engaged at work.

Conclusion: Move Beyond the Spreadsheet

Spreadsheets are where skills data goes to die. They are static, prone to error, and disconnected from your daily workflows. They cannot model the complexity of a modern workforce.

Skills Base is the platform for Total Talent Visibility.

We help you move beyond the surface level. With our tools, you aren’t just looking at a point-in-time snapshot. You are building a dynamic, real-time model of your organization’s competitive edge. You are giving yourself the visibility to manage today and the insight to plan for tomorrow.

Stop guessing. Stop hoping. Start measuring. Deploy an agentic analyst team with Skills Lens and start making smarter talent decisions powered by verified skills.

The post Skills Gap Analysis: The Definitive Guide for Modern Enterprises appeared first on Skills Base.

Migrating Legacy Account Types: Making things easier

Nick — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 05:39:03 +0000

This article is specifically for Skills Base Customers on the legacy Self-Service and Self-Service unlimited subscription types. Anyone on Free, Teams, Enterprise, or Ultimate will be unaffected.

Skills Base has been helping teams and organizations identify, measure, and act on skill gaps and strengths for over a decade. In that time, we have packaged up features based on customer needs in various ways.

As of March 1st 2024, we will begin to migrate accounts to this years subscription types, based on the renewal dates of affected customers. This ensures we can continue to deliver the most secure, innovative, and scalable skills management platform into the new year and beyond.

Your account just got an upgrade — The Changes

We’ve gone through the process of outlining the high-level changes.

Customers on the Self-Service license will be migrated to the Teams license; this will remove skill limits and give you even more freedom to manage your data — with APIs and the new Skills Base Data Importer.

Customers on Self-Service Unlimited license will be migrated to the Enterprise license, giving you access to additional reporting, controls around assessments and qualifications, and enhanced data management.

	Self Service (Legacy)	Teams	Self Service Unlimited (Legacy)	Enterprise	Ultimate
Locations limit	2	2	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
Skills limit	250	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited	Unlimited
API	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SSO	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Attachments	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom Fields	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Scheduled Reports	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Qualification expiry	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Fixed assessment dates	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Competency Analysis	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Data Importer	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Training Module	No	No	No	No	Yes
Brand Customization	No	No	No	No	Yes
Career Mobility Insights	No	No	No	No	Yes

Privacy, Security, and Transparency

Skills Base is used by some of the largest private and public organizations worldwide. Because of this, we invest heavily in the scalability of infrastructure and data safeguards that can held to the highest global standards.

By simplifying the account types available, we can continue to offer and expand on the leading skills management experience that you expect from us.

Our team is here to help

As a part of this migration process and beyond, you will have full access to our Customer Success team, whether that’s to learn about what’s new, discuss best practices, or explore how to take your skills management journey to the next level.

If you haven’t heard from us yet, you can schedule a meeting directly or create a support ticket for us to reach out.

Your Payment Experience

Many self-service customers enjoy the flexibility of payment via a credit card, and you can continue this into your teams or enterprise experience. We are also offering the opportunity to migrate payment to an invoice if it makes sense to your workflows.

New Pricing

We are offering existing customers who are transitioning from self-service a discount as part of this upgrade to Teams or Enterprise licenses tiers.

The new pricing recognizes the investment we have made in infrastructure (via Amazon AWS), security (eg: our GDPR compliance) and new functionality we have added to the platform.

Customers who do not wish to upgrade can continue to use our free license.

How to renew

Prior to your subscription lapsing you will need to contact our accounts team (accounts “at” skills-base.com) and advise us if you wish to continue with the upgrade as proposed. Our team will then renew your license and provide you with an invoice and payment options.

The year ahead.

In the last year, the team worked hard to develop features to help manage your data (check out the year-in-review blog). Over the next 12 months, we have some exciting things planned, from assessment UI enhancements and more granular reporting to the introduction of AI-driven Skills Management, so get ready!

We’re looking forward to the year ahead.

The entire Skills Base team.

The post Migrating Legacy Account Types: Making things easier appeared first on Skills Base.

Skills Base A Year In Review | Data Insights & What’s Next

Nick — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 12:53:33 +0000

Now is the moment to review the past year, acknowledging the journey people are on and considering the road ahead.

While the ascent of AI captured our attention, the prominence of skills-based organizations continued to dominate discussions. It’s clear that an increasing number of individuals, teams, and organizations recognize the intrinsic value, and these statistics affirm the growing sentiment — At least towards Skills Base.

a growing user base

This growth signifies the increasing recognition of Skills Base as an indispensable tool for individuals and organizations alike.

skills assessed this year alone

A reflection of the depth and breadth of skills being evaluated and the strengths and gaps being uncovered on our platform.

Skills Areas

Within our customers’ skills directories, there are over 900,000 skills being tracked. Demonstrating the diverse needs from each organization.

Courses linked to skill gaps

Customers are taking a dynamic approach that not only facilitates continuous learning but also ensures that identified gaps are efficiently addressed.

While we take pride in our numerical achievements and milestones at Skills Base, it’s equally important to acknowledge the significant victories our customers have experienced:

Ensuring compliance in engineering and manufacturing industries by establishing visibility into skills and validating certifications.
Supporting strategic investment decisions related to learning and development initiatives.
Drastically reducing the critical time needed to source exceptional talent and efficiently allocating those individuals to projects.
Gaining a profound understanding of the human element amid substantial growth and continuous acquisition of new organizations.

The value derived from skill insights is undeniable, prompting the question: why isn’t everyone seizing the opportunity to engage in this transformative process?

A year to Democratize Skills Management

The Skills Base team engages with individuals on a daily basis:

From regions around the world, including APAC, EMEA, North America, Eastern Europe, India, Africa and South Africa
Use cases focused on workforce planning, acquisition, resource allocation, learning and development, mergers and acquisitions, pay and much more
Industries spanning IT & Technology, Engineering, Manufacturing, Banking and Finance, Life Sciences, Consulting
Managers of 10 to 5,000 people or organizations of 100,000+

Navigating the complexities of skills-based transformation can be overwhelming. Despite an influx of articles advocating for this ideal state, the reality is that organizational change is a gradual process, often constrained by time limitations. Transformation must be approached iteratively, empowering individuals and demonstrating tangible value to the organization.

In a recent survey involving over 3000 participants, we sought to comprehend their perspectives on tracking and managing skills. The findings revealed that many are just embarking on this journey, recognizing the maturity of this shift.

I'm not tracking skills

I'm tracking via spreadsheets

I'm tracking via my HR System

I'm tracking via skills management

This year we released hundreds of improvements across Skills Base, but a core goal was to make it easy for anyone to get started on their skills journey.

We created The Skills Base Library, offering free skills templates based on specific roles to help people start or expand their own skills directories.

We also developed The Skills Base Data Importer, a set of tools making it simpler for individuals to move away from spreadsheets, and established Skills Base users to continue to import and update their own data effortlessly.

We improved our API infrastructure, enabling more customers to connect with HR Systems like Workday and SAP SuccessFactors, As well as Credly Workforce to track and manage certifications at scale.

To provide comprehensive guidance, we launched a detailed whitepaper on the Skills Base Methodology, offering everything individuals need to start and succeed in their skills management journeys.

In essence, our focus this year was on making skills management accessible to everyone so that anyone can find value.

So, what’s next?

Brining your data to life

At the core of any skills management initiative lies the crucial element of establishing trust in the data. At Skills Base, we’ve designed our platform with this principle in mind, ensuring that individuals, managers, and the entire organization can leverage data to make informed people decisions.

Looking ahead to the coming year, our vision is to breathe life into this data in several ways through strategic investments

Enhancing the Skills Measurement and Assessment Experience

By refining the process of measuring and assessing skills, we aim to instill even greater confidence in the data, empowering users to make more informed decisions.

Introducing a New Query and Analysis Approach:

We are working on a new method for querying and analyzing data across your Skills Base account, providing a more dynamic and insightful user experience.

Improving Data Reporting and Visualization:

Our focus includes developing better ways to report on and visualize your data, ensuring that insights are presented in a clear and impactful manner.

These initiatives are pivotal steps in realizing the full potential of genuine AI Skills Management Software.

We wish you a wonderful end to the year, and we eagerly anticipate the opportunities and advancements that 2024 will bring.

The Skills Base Team

The post Skills Base A Year In Review | Data Insights & What’s Next appeared first on Skills Base.

The Skills Base Data Importer | A Gateway to Skills Management

Nick — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 12:05:52 +0000

Transitioning from spreadsheets to skills management software is a game-changer for many organizations looking to evolve their talent management strategies. But, as much as we’d love to say goodbye to spreadsheets for good, they do play a vital role in many people’s workflows.

That’s why we’ve built the Skills Base Data Importer. An efficient, intuitive, secure and transparent way to import and update your data via csv.

So let’s take a closer look.

Mastering Data Management in Skills Base

Before we get stuck into showing you how to import data using the new tools, it’s important to understand the data entities which make up the foundations of your skill management system.

Each entity represents a specific type of information essential for a comprehensive understanding and management of skills within your organization. From individual employee details to course mappings, these entities cover all the necessary data points that enable you to create a dynamic and responsive skills framework.

Let’s delve into each of these 13 key data entities:

Skills: A comprehensive catalog of skills tracked within the organization, forming the basis for all skill-related activities and strategies.
People: Comprehensive data on individual employees, allowing an individual’s skill profile to be revealed.
Teams: Information on different teams or groups within the organization crucial for understanding team dynamics
Roles: Detailed descriptions of various roles within the organization, including required skills and competencies essential for role clarity, personal development, resource allocation and much more
Locations: Captures geographical or departmental locations, facilitating targeted skill management across different areas of your organization.
Targets: Specified skill level required for each role to meet to be considered competent.
Qualifications: Records formal qualifications, certifications, or degrees employees hold, crucial for compliance and a broader picture of capability.
Qualification Assignments: Tracks which qualifications are assigned to which individuals, ensuring accurate record-keeping for career progression and training needs.
Self Ratings: Employees’ self-assessments of their skills, providing valuable insights into their perceived strengths and areas for improvement.
Supervisor Ratings: Skill ratings provided by supervisors or managers, which helps to verify and validate self-assessment responses to increase accuracy of data and foster dialog.
Skill Assignments: Assignments of specific skills to different data entities, including people, teams, roles, and locations.
Course Mappings: This entity connects specific courses to relevant skills or roles, creating a clear pathway for employee development and training alignment.
Courses: Linked courses from your existing repository.

Each of these high level data entities contain deeper levels of nuance, including custom fields that can ensure process and organizational context is met.

So, now that’s all out of the way, let’s import a file.

How to import data into Skills Base

Your new home for importing or updating data via csv can be found in the administrator settings under data importer. This screen will provide a detailed history and audit trail for any previous, in progress, or failed data imports.

Step 1: Choosing your import type

When starting a new import, you’ll have the option to select from each of the different data entities. You will also have the opportunity to set the import rules such as; “I want to just update records” or “I want to create and update records”.

For the sake of this example, we’ll look at getting our Marketing team into the system.

There is no need for templates because Skills Base will provide a dynamic reference guide based on your existing fields. ( but just in case, we have created some)

Step 2: Mapping your fields

Not the right heading names? No problem.

The second step to the import process allows you to add additional context to the import, such as data matching rules and linking your csv columns to those in Skills Base.

When you have created these mappings, you’re ready to see if it all worked!

Step 3: Preview your data

Now that you’ve uploaded your data, set the rules and mapped your fields you can do a final check of your data import. At this point Skills Base has not imported any records into your account — adding another level of validation.

Step 4: Your data is ready

Congratulations you’re done in four easy steps. You’ll get one final screen providing a detailed breakdown of data that was added, updated or failed to import to your instance.

Starting your skills journey

Our goal is to democratize the processes and technology surrounding Skills Management. By helping people who are starting from nothing through the Skills Base Library, migrating away from spreadsheets through the data importer, or implementing unique and complex integrations so skill insights can be core to key talent decisions. Now is the time to explore the benefits of Skills Base — create your free account today.

The post The Skills Base Data Importer | A Gateway to Skills Management appeared first on Skills Base.

A Skills Base Product Update | New Features, Integrations, and More

Nick — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 08:31:10 +0000

As we help an increasing number of teams and organizations build a digital model of their skills, the Skills Base platform continues to evolve.

In the last quarter alone, Skills Base customers assessed a staggering 7 million skills. And these insights support real-time workforce decisions across workforce planning, talent acquisition, development, allocation, management and reward, and retention.

Every month Skills Base releases fresh updates encompassing everything from major new features to usability enhancements and important bug fixes. This blog is focused on showcasing everything you need to know.

So, here it is.

New Feature

The Skills Base Library

When embarking on any skills transformation project, one of the biggest barriers to entry is having a list of skills ready to go.

For many people just starting out, this can be tedious, and let’s face it… who has the time!

The goal should be to start small, learn, and iterate, and that’s where the Skills Base Library comes in. It’s a collection of roles that come pre-mapped to skills, with context-rich descriptions.

We’re constantly adding to this list, so if you can’t find what you’re looking for, reach out, and we’ll see where we can help.

Stay up to date, follow us on LinkedIn

New Feature

Personal Skills

The Personal Skills Feature allows individuals to add additional skills from the existing organization’s skills library. This is a way to empower employees and ensure that each person has a more comprehensive view of their abilities.

This is an opt-in feature, so if you’re interested in turning it on, reach out to the team.

Building a skills taxonomy? Learn what we have to say.

New Feature

Credly Workforce Integration

We have released a new integration between Skills Base and Credly Workforce which provides visibility into badges earned by employees.

This integration adds new data fields that can be mapped between systems, including:

Data Source
Badge Image link
Issuer, and
Description URL

This is an opt-in feature and requires a paid Credly Workforce subscription. If you’re interested to see it in action, book a meeting with the team.

New Feature

Training Visibility in the Skills Matrix

Customers with the training module can now provide an “at a glance” indication of all possible training available for a specific skill. Having all of this data in one place means that employees can easily become self-guided in their own skills development or can work with their managers in a meaningful way to close any gaps.

Enhancement

Custom Fields and Attachments for Teams

We’ve enhanced the team directory to now be in line with roles, locations, people, and qualifications. You can now add attachments and custom fields to ensure it’s relevant to your organization.

New Feature

Multi-Factor Authentication

As an additional layer of security and protection for your account, we have released multi-factor authentication.

Thought Leadership

The Skills Base Methodology Whitepaper

Delivering a successful skills-based transformation project isn’t just about skills management software. It is a cultural change that needs to be understood by all parties involved and be based on a proven methodology.

This is why we released our whitepaper, which has been highly regarded by thought leaders around the world. It focuses on three core areas of transformation; Identify, Measure, and Act.

Whether you’re a Skills Base customer or not download the whitepaper and make sure you’re setting yourself up for success.

There are hundreds of enhancements that we’ve made to the back-end and front-end of Skills Base, as well as many more to come. Over the coming months, there are some exciting new features planned for release and development by the team, including:

A new self-guided way to bulk import data into Skills Base
Setting the foundations for a new way to query and report on skills data
A more intuitive way to assess skills

Thanks to the hundreds of Skills Base customers for your ongoing feedback, input, and suggestions.

The Skills Base Team.

The post A Skills Base Product Update | New Features, Integrations, and More appeared first on Skills Base.

An Update to the Skills Base MSA | July 2023

Nick — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 05:11:41 +0000

Rolling out today – 7th July 2023 — is an update to our Master Subscription Agreement (MSA).

We have listened to your feedback and have developed a more comprehensive and user-friendly MSA, specifically tailored to meet your needs and align with industry standards.

Quick Links

Here are some key enhancements included in our new MSA:

Clearer Description of Services

We have provided a more comprehensive description of the services we provide (Clause 1).

Streamlined Access Obligations

We have enhanced the clarity of your obligations, as well as the obligations of your users, when accessing our services. This improvement will simplify your navigation and facilitate compliance with the necessary guidelines outlined in Clauses 2 and 3

Enhanced Privacy and Data Processing

Your privacy and data protection are of utmost importance to us. Our new MSA includes a dedicated clause (Clause 4) that covers the obligations and rights of both parties, along with the incorporation of our new Data Processing Addendum. This ensures a comprehensive framework for handling your data securely and transparently. Unlike the previous MSA, which referenced our Privacy Policy and Data Processing Addendum in Clause 5, the new MSA provides more explicit details.

Improved Termination Terms

We have provided a more detailed explanation of the circumstances under which termination can occur and the associated consequences. This will help facilitate a smoother process in the event of termination compared to the previous MSA.

Detailed Warranties and Limitation of Liability

We have added more in-depth information regarding warranties and limitations of liability in Clauses 8, 9, and 10. This ensures that both parties are well-informed about their rights and responsibilities in case any unforeseen circumstances arise.

We believe that our improved MSA will offer you greater transparency, peace of mind, and an overall better experience. We value your partnership and are committed to continuously enhancing our services to meet your evolving needs. Should you have any questions or require further clarification please open a support ticket here, our dedicated support team is always here to assist you.

The Skills Base team

The post An Update to the Skills Base MSA | July 2023 appeared first on Skills Base.

Introducing Personal Skills | Track the skills that matter

Nick — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 00:10:00 +0000

One of the most important parts about becoming a successful skills-based team or organization is a solid measurement framework. A method that leverages an organizational authored skills taxonomy to support critical people decisions across talent allocation, development, acquisition, reward and retention.

However, a vital part of a successful skills-based practice is giving autonomy and ownership to each individual, so that they can add to the skills obtained in their current work practices, accumulated from past experiences, and are interested in developing in the future.

This is why we’ve released Personal Skills.

The Personal Skills Feature allows individuals to add additional skills from the existing organization’s skills library. This is a way to empower employees, and ensure that each person has a more comprehensive view of their abilities.

When an individual has added skill(s) they will be asked to set a self-assessment rating. Any subsequent assessments that are completed by the individual or manager will then include any newly added skills.

You can find more information about Personal Skills, as well as the assignment of skills to teams, or roles here.

Personal Skills is an opt-in feature that needs to be enabled by your account manager, or the customer success team.

If you have an existing Skills Base account and interested to see it in action, schedule a quick meeting today. Or if you’re new, book in a demo to see what Skills Base can do for your people, team and entire organization.

The post Introducing Personal Skills | Track the skills that matter appeared first on Skills Base.

20 million skills assessed & counting | Update July 2022

Nick — Mon, 25 Jul 2022 23:12:36 +0000

There are certain milestones as a business when you have to stop for a second and reflect. For us, we have reached a staggering 20 million skills assessed on the Skills Base platform — which is growing by the week.

It’s evident that teams and organizations require a better way to manage skills — and spreadsheets simply don’t cut it. Also with markets moving the way they are there has never been a more important time to focus on the people that matter most:

How do we develop people in the right way?
How do we allocate people to work that makes sense to them, and the customer?
How do we retain people by delivering an exceptional human experience?
How do we acquire the right skills into roles not from external sources, but through internal mobility?

The Answer? By understanding, measuring and acting on skills.

Kicking things off, welcome to the team!

As our product and customer base grow, we’re also happy to grow the team with it. A warm welcome to:

Daniel (Danny) Jaoude has come on board as a customer success manager supporting our many European Customers.
Marc Luvshis has come on board as a customer success manager supporting our North American customers.
Nathaniel (Nate) Rogers joins us as a new software engineer out of Australia.

And without further ado, here’s a bunch of the features we’ve released to the Skills Base platform over the last 6 months.

PS. We’ve also created a new page to document changes to the Skills Base platform. Head across and check it out.

New Feature

Career Mobility Insights

Whether you’re promoting a growth culture, trying to drive internal talent acquisition, or looking to retain key people, giving each individual the freedom and visibility to move within an organization has never been as important.

This is why we’re excited to have released the new feature Career Mobility Insights (find the video here ). This feature provides transparency, and genuine learning pathways for individuals to move deeper into their area of specialization, or change entirely within the organization.

When used along side the training module, each individual will also be automatically recommended training that will guide them towards their desired roles.

New Feature

Salut to French Translations

Joining English, Italian and German are the new French Translations for Skills Base. This is avaliable for all users and accounts so jump on in and take it for a spin.

Looking for additional translations for your teams? Just ask us about what’s next.

See Skills Base in Action

Enhancement

Redesign and Refactoring of the Skills Base UI

In the previous 6 month product update blog we announced the migration towards a new design framework. This effort continued with the redesign and refactoring of the skills directory, teams and roles dashboards.

Read some of our latest blogs

What skills management and intelligence software actually does, and why it matters

Blog May 19, 2026

The role of skills data in talent decisions

Blog May 18, 2026

What to look for in skills assessment tools

Blog April 30, 2026

New Feature

HR Tech / HRIS integration - Phase 1

There is a new architecture within Skills Base for processing batch files from third-party systems. We are looking to roll this out in different phases, with the first being focused around different HR Systems.

We know there’s a lot out there, and we’ve been fortunate enough to work with a few of our customers to prove out the integration between Skills Base and Workday.

If you were interested with this integration, or looking for any others let the team know.

New Feature

Better data handling tools

With data privacy and security being a core focus of the Skills Base platform, we have introduced a new way (within the application) to share files between your organization and the Skills Base team.

New Feature

Add skills in one click

You can now use the “quick add skill” button to instantly insert skills into your skills taxonomy.

New Feature

Cancel in progress self-assessments

Administrators now have greater control and can cancel in-progress self-assessments.

New Feature

Custom Fields For Courses

You can now attach custom fields to courses to ensure you’re capturing the right information.

New Feature

Link local files to courses in Skills Base

Skills Base now allows training materials from ‘file’ URLs (e.g. Windows shares) instead of only web pages.

New Feature

Link Joplin URLs to courses in Skills Base

Skills Base now allows training materials from ‘joplin’ URLs.

Ps. Looking for access to different URLs and file types? Just reach out to the team and ask.

New Feature

Export Training Trend Data to CSV

Need to further Analyze training outcomes and ROI? You can now find the curated report on the reporting page.

Enhancement

Improved search functionality

When searching for data in a tree view, the results are now more responsive based on inputs.

Enhancement

Qualification start / end filtering

Added the ability to filter qualifications by start and end dates.

Enhancement

Improved SAML Integration - Metadata

Added the ability to provide IDP metadata by specifying a URL rather than uploading a file.

Enhancement

Improved SAML Integration - Multiple Configs.

Skills Base can now support multiple SSO configurations (auth providers) for an organization.

Enhancement

Improved Skill Trend reporting

With the new ability to add individual skills to people, the Skill Trend Dashboard and exports will now query each skill a person has assigned.

Enhancement

Improved PDF exports

When you export a PDF for an individual person, it will now indicate the data calculation method. (Self Assessment Data, Supervisor Assessment Data or Average Assessment Data)

Enhancement

People Finder data export controls

You can now disable data exports in People Finder via different Security Groups.

Still unsure where to start?

Our team is always ready to discuss how you can become skills-based.

The post 20 million skills assessed & counting | Update July 2022 appeared first on Skills Base.

A Growing Product, Customer Base & Team | January 2022 Skills Base Update

Nick — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 22:45:21 +0000

It’s been 6 months since the last Skills Base update and there have been some exciting additions to the Skills Base product and team.

But one thing that hasn’t changed is the acceleration towards becoming skills based. This can be seen ‘as clear as day’ by the Skills Base customer base growing more than 100% (year on year).

So if you joined us at the start of 2021, or are completely new to the Skills Base platform, another big welcome!

We’re also excited to have new team members join Skills Base from Australia (AU), Denver (US) and New Jersey (US), so expect to see their faces around a lot more moving forward:

Tim Waldron has joined the team to help take the Skills Base User Interface to the next level
John Deiner has joined the CX Team in our Denver office
Todd Heath, also in our Denver office has joined us to help new customers take their first step toward becoming skills-based,
Bill Taradash, has joined the New Jersey office to help more teams and organizations grow with Skills Base.

Now to the Skills Base product update. Sometimes, the changes that happen behind the scenes can have the biggest impacts. And that’s one of the big themes for the past 6 months

New Feature

Skills Mapping just got a lot more granular

You’ve asked for it, and now it’s here! You are now able to go a step further and assign individual skills to roles, teams and people.

Why would you want to do this? Well, A person may have a skillset that exists above and beyond an established team, or role. By opening up more granular skills mapping, those teams and organization’s using Skills Base can become even more agile and dynamic to truly solve critical talent management, recruitment, L&D, workforce planning, and resource allocation problems.

What makes this update even more powerful, is that this change has far reaching benefits across each and every part of Skills Base. We now have the foundation set to build critical features and functionality that you have been asking for (so get ready for a flurry of features that take advantage of this critical update!).

See the new features for yourself

New Feature

Improvements across the User Interface

You might have noticed a new coat of paint for the “person dashboard” – giving the UI a newer, fresher vibe ( with profile pictures! ). Well you can be excited that it’s a lot more than just that.

This screen layout sets the foundation for a new modern flexible user interface framework, meaning that there’s a lot more to come.

Over the next few months you can expect to see the continued migration of pages, and additional updates to the UI.

We also have a few other changes in mind, but we’ll keep that under wraps for now.

Stay up to date and follow us on socials

New Feature

R&D, Experimentation, and Innovation

We’re often quiet about some of the cool new stuff that we work on and keep behind closed doors. But, we wanted to start to open this up to more and more users of Skills Base.

As an opt-in module we now have the ability to turn on pre-alpha or experimental features to administrators of Skills Base accounts.

This is a way for us to further iterate and innovate within Skills Base with more direct user and customer feedback – giving you the ability to try out concepts and influence them before they’re actually turned into a live product or feature.

A new way to query skills? New Features / functionality? A completely left field experiment for … well, you’ll just have to talk to us to see.

What else have we been working on?

New Feature

Manually add courses to a person's Training list

Users now have the ability to manually add a course to their training list.

New Feature

Addition of People Finder to Landing Pages

The People Finder feature can now be set as a primary landing page for when a user logs in.

New Feature

Better data integrity through SSO

As an opt-in feature you can now populate team, role and location attributes via Single Sign On.

New Feature

Skill Starter Sampler for new Instances

Any new instance that is created will be automatically populated with 200+ skills for a better Skills Base experience and a quicker start.

Enhancement

Improved profile pictures display for Users

Users and admins can now upload pictures of their employees and it is displayed within the personal dashboard.

Enhancement

Global Search Improvements

When using the global search in Skills Base, you can now access knowledge base articles – making your life easier.

Enhancement

Less clutter for invitations

There is now a new tab in the people directory which displays all invited users. Keeping your activated people directory clean and manageable.

Enhancement

More control over training prioritization

Administrators of Skills Base can now manually turn on and off course recommendations based on high, medium and low priorities.

Enhancement

Improvements to the Training Recommendation Algorithm

The Skills Base Training RecommendationAlgorithm now better understands skill levels and the training opportunities that exist based on the prioritizations set.

Enhancement

More control over training filtering

There is now added filtering within the Training tab of a person’s dashboard.

Enhancement

Improvements made to column filtering

Additional improvements have been added to column-based search filtering which will now remember the field status.

Enhancement

Field Selection for People Finder Export

Users are now able to select the fields that they wish to export as a part of the People Finder CSV.

Enhancement

More Security Group Controls

When enabled, non-administrator accounts can edit and bulk-edit the Security Group assignments to people. Giving you more control over system-role management at scale.

Enhancement

Added quick links to people directory

There are now a bunch of quick links to reports that can be accessed directly from the people directory.

Enhancement

Added Skill Assignment Export to Quick links

You can now export role and team skill assignments (where they exist) straight from dashboards

Enhancement

Skills Tab Rating Improvements

When updating skill ratings directly from the Skills Tab, the rating scheme will also be shown.

Enhancement

Skills Tab Now collapsible

Users now have the ability to open and collapse the skills matrix with one click

Enhancement

Support for iWork Attachments

Users can now attach iWork documents to all records that support attachments.

Skills Base a top 100 Learning System?

That’s right, if you didn’t hear Skills Base was chosen as a top 100 learning system by the Craig Weiss Group. Identified as the global leading skills metrics solution that works in a symbiotic way with LMS Tools to produce better outcomes for employees, a business’s bottom line, and ultimately for your customers.

"I recommend only one skill measurement platform – Skills Base. It’s the best one out there"

Craig Weiss Tweet

If you’re a Skills Base customer and want to revisit your goals, or are just starting out on your Skills-Based journey, make sure to book a chat with the team today.

We’ll be happy to take you through any and all of these new features!

Still unsure where to start?

Our team is always ready to discuss how you can become skills-based.

The post A Growing Product, Customer Base & Team | January 2022 Skills Base Update appeared first on Skills Base.

July 2021 Skills Base Update – Check out what’s new

Nick — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 05:42:06 +0000

We are here to celebrate the continued growth of Skills Base and the passionate and generous engagement and feedback from our customers that is helping to create an innovative suite of tools across skills management, skills assessment, skills matrix reporting, skill and competency mapping and much more that is truly helping businesses understand and act on their skills gaps. This engagement is shown by the 5.5 million skills assessed on the Skills Base platform in the past 6 months.

It’s obvious that the world is moving fast to a skills-based approach. Our conversations are with clients across Australia, The UK, Germany, and The USA to Brunei, Vietnam, the Pacific Islands and The Caribbean. This is a global trend that is only just getting started!

But don’t take our word for it read for yourself what global experts are saying:

You Need a Skills-Based Approach to Hiring and Developing Talent – By Harvard Business Review
Understanding SkillsTech, One Of The Biggest Markets In Business – By Josh Bersin
Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work – By McKinsey
Finding Flexibility through Skills-Based Strategies – By Mercer
The Future of Jobs in the Era of AI – By Boston Consulting Group

So… What can we all be excited about in new major features that have been released over the last 6 months?

Make sure to follow us on social media

5 New Major Feature Releases

New Feature

Close skill gaps efficiently and effectively with the Training Module

You’ve invested thousands of dollars in a new learning management system, dedicated countless hours to the creation and curation of unique purpose-built content, and your employees are participating in this upskilling.

The new training module in Skills Base gives you the ability to act on your employees’ skills gaps. Not only can you connect to any online training resource, but you can assign the course completion to improvements in skill and competency levels.

New Feature

Identify Skill Gaps Faster with the new Competency Analysis Chart

Find top skill areas for development and investment, and gain valuable insights into the capabilities of the different cohorts within your workforce.

The competency analysis chart is another reporting tool at your disposal. This visual representation facilitates rapid identification of gaps and strengths, as well as the volume of skills across different parts of your organization.

New Feature

Ciao Mondo! Italian translations is here

With customers and users around the world, we’re often asked if Skills Base is available in their native language. We’re happy to announce that alongside English (UK), English (US), and German. Skills Base users can now easily choose Italian as a native Skills Base language. And we have more on the way.

Interested in localization for your region? Just ask and we can see what’s next.

New Feature

Making your instance your own, with custom branding

There’s nothing better to build internal advocacy than to deploy a new piece of technology that you can call your own.

The Customizations module provides options for configuring Skills Base at a deeper level so it looks and feels like part of your internal ecosystem.

New Feature

Get started faster with the new Setup Wizard

Adopting a skills-based approach across your business doesn’t just involve tech — but the methodology that underpins how skills are understood, managed, tracked, reported on and actioned.

Any new Skills Base instance created will now go through a quick setup wizard to explain this methodology as well as begin introducing people to building their skills taxonomy, assessing skills, and reporting on skill gaps.

A few more minor features and enhancements

New Feature

Update targets straight from the skills matrix

When an individual’s Target Source is changed to Custom, a “Targets” tab will be visible on their personal skills matrix dashboard. Read the knowledge base article.

New Feature

Export skill trend data

You can now export the complete history of skill level changes over time for a set of people. Read the knowledge base article.

New Feature

Search for people via custom fields

People Finder (watch the overview video here) will now allow you to search your people using custom fields that you have set up. Read more about people finder here.

New Feature

Automated language selector based on browser

If you sign into Skills Base with German, Italian, English (UK) or English (US) set as your default browser language, Skills Base will recommend new in-application preferences.

New Feature

You can now see assessment due dates in the assess people screen

Enhancement

API can now accept both JSON and form-encoded data

Enhancement

Improved bulk data import functionality

Enhancement

Improved Qualification management

Enhancement

Quality of life improvements across the different APIs

Enhancement

Internal Skill Assessment database improvements

Enhancement

Internal Qualification database improvements

Enhancement

Internal skill database improvements

Enhancement

Parent categories for skills are now available in the report builder

Skills Base is built for security, scale and speed. The team has been hard at work across a variety of other measures to maintain a platform that is expected of us, and that you can be confident in.

Over the last few months we’ve also released a bunch of interesting articles that’s worth taking a look into:

Want to see any new changes in action?

Schedule a demo now

The post July 2021 Skills Base Update – Check out what’s new appeared first on Skills Base.