The problem

In today’s landscape, companies constantly introduce new digital tools, products, webinars, and training opportunities to the library community. Given this influx, it can be challenging. Libraries and staff often struggle to align their organizational strategies and hone key skills.

When library departments reorganize to meet new user needs and make optimal use of resources, it is incumbent on leaders to communicate how staff contributions will contribute to the library’s strategic directions and service to the user community. Teams often develop sets of cascading goals and milestones for individuals to help them reach the future state together.

For new priorities or organizational strategies change to truly stick, staff must know the skills and product experience required to achieve new goals. Unfortunately, few managers receive training in staff skill development. Hence, this step often falls short. Many groups of people persist in directing their efforts or professional development towards familiar territories. They gravitate towards the tasks they’ve always undertaken. This approach could jeopardize the implementation of new priorities.

The solution

Skilltype’s connected skills data, training resources, and community learning tools, such as Training Lists, provide a shared vocabulary that helps leaders, supervisors, and staff contributors understand the connections between strategic directions, skills, and job roles in the library industry. 

Skilltype’s Talent Audits help leaders discover the areas where staff skills are over or under-represented to inform reorganization plans, alongside the potential impact on realizing the library’s strategies. 

Supervisors can connect the key skills needed or missing from the library system to the responsibilities and goals of each team. Supervisors can guide staff to pertinent skills they might cultivate in the future so they can upskill or re-skill as needed. 

Skilltype’s automated weekly recommendations connect staff to relevant training resources associated with the skills they need for upskilling or reskilling. Skilltype designed the platform for efficient resource organization. It collects resources that cater to over fifty library job categories. As a result, staff specializing in fields like Access Services, Metadata, E-Resources, and User Experience benefit from this. They have a diverse collection of training resources at their disposal to explore. For supervisors, there’s an added advantage. They have the capability to curate tailored training sequences. This is done using Skilltype Training Lists to bolster team skill development. When they share a Training List with a team, an automated process kicks in. Staff receive notifications, ensuring they stay current with ease.Each time new material is added, staff are notified and invited again to continue their development. 

In addition to training resources, Supervisors are equipped with up-to-date skills, product experience, and interest activity data in one place through Skilltype’s Teams dashboards. Supervisors have the ability to search for skills within their team. This helps in determining the allocation of new tasks. They can also identify a team’s strengths or potential gap through a Skilltype’s Skills Inventory. Furthermore, they can stay updated with the latest training activities. Having all this information readily available is beneficial for supervisors. It paves the way for genuine discussions about growth, engagement, and performance. Such conversations ensure that employee priorities resonate with the organizational strategies.