The challenge facing business leaders is enormous. By 2030, more than 85 million jobs around the world could go unfilled because workers do not have the right qualifications to fill them. This translates to $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenue. The old ways of upskilling people just don’t work anymore, and people in the corporate learning industry know it. That’s why there are so many different continuous learning solutions.
But it is not enough to choose between a saturation of solutions. You can’t just buy more learning content, a learning management system (LMS), a learning experience platform (LXP), or a talent mobility solution and expect everything to work seamlessly. You need to make sure that all of your learning technology works together and that students have a great experience. Additionally, you need to be able to collect data and insights from each part of your learning ecosystem to build a more informed view of your global skills supply and demand.
The importance of collaboration in continuous learning
Organizations are increasingly collaborating to find and develop the capabilities needed to achieve their business goals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we witnessed talent being shared between internal departments and mobilized to external partners and companies driven by market needs.
In the next decade, 1.1 billion people will need new skills to perform new roles, so it is essential to be open to collaboration, both internally and cross-sector and even with skills. Sometimes societal challenges must transcend normal business lines.
A common language for competencies
Given the big push in competencies, we have also seen a proliferation of competency taxonomies. Each content provider and technology company has created their own taxonomy of competencies, which creates complexities as we need all technologies to integrate seamlessly to deliver an amazing learning experience. If each provider and end customer uses different taxonomies, the task becomes much more difficult, because you have to try to align different job descriptions and classification systems.
A taxonomy provides your company with a way to connect across departments and with other companies about the skills each person has and is developing. A taxonomy also weaves a common thread through all the HR and training systems your company uses, creating a single source of information about the skills your employees have, are acquiring, and need.
Consolidate the data
A lot of information goes into a competency taxonomy. Data from hiring, human resources, and learning systems, including, but not limited to, resumes, job descriptions, learning activities, career and learning interests, and performance and peer feedback. It should be noted that learning data can make a competency taxonomy truly dynamic and exceptionally up-to-date, compared to data you get once a year from performance or HR reviews. For best results, you need a comprehensive suite of multiple HR and training systems.
a global effort
A common skills language is essential when moving staff internally or between organizations, as well as when undertaking any large-scale skills upgrading initiative. Hence the need for company managers to establish a taxonomy of competencies that is adopted in all organizations and sectors.
With this common taxonomy of skills, organizations will have a head start in addressing pressing workforce issues, such as how to upskill people (and how many people) for future needs, or where to redeploy people to functions that make the best use of their competencies.
The future of work is about driving more agile and efficient competency-based approaches to recruitment, professional development and continuous learning. Starting with a common taxonomy of competencies is a smart move.
Debora Mioranzza Débora Mioranzza is the Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean of Degreed, the platform for the improvement and requalification of the workforce.