The problem

Libraries are rapidly changing as people retire, services require new skills, and locations become hybrid. During periods of reorganization and strategic planning, prioritizing Identifying who is capable of doing what and who is interested in learning what is high. Most libraries lack the capacity to map skills across their organization, especially against a professional standards framework. Campus or municipal HR only classifies library work in the most general sense, often in comparison to other departments within the enterprise. The traditional method of mapping capabilities across the organization involves a combination of surveys, focus groups, and annual performance review processes. This produces insights that quickly become outdated, leading supervisors and employees to miss opportunities.

the solution

Skilltype automates skill mapping in a secure and scalable way. Upon onboarding, employees can capture their skills, interests, and priorities into a profile that leverages industry core competency frameworks from ALA, SLA, NASIG, and more. We store employee profile data securely while complying with data privacy regulations such as GDPR.Skilltype feeds employee data into an organizational dashboard that is searchable and browsable, updating in real-time as changes occur. These insights facilitate 1-on-1 conversations and help find experts for tasks. They also aid in group meetings to divide project labor. Additionally, reports from Skilltype can be downloaded for external use.

Within the organization’s dashboard, several views are available to map employee skills. Using Skilltype Teams, team members can see skills across their colleagues in a Team view. Libraries can create up to 300 teams, and teams can hold up to 600 people. As a member of the team, users can click on an employee’s profile to learn more about their skills and interests. They can also search for a specific skill to view a list of employees who have the skill.

Library administrators can view data across teams and in a special admin view that includes data across the organization. This view, called the Talent Audit, compares employee skill data against the organization’s priorities as captured in the Organization’s Needs Assessment, organizing the library’s priorities into three categories: Skills Acquired, Skills Interested, and Skills Missing. Acquired shows employees who have listed the skills the library needs. Interested shows employees who want to learn the skills the library needs. Missing shows the skills employees neither have nor want to learn. In this case, Skilltype can display prospective employees who have the missing skill and want to work for the library. Skilltype can also find partner libraries within a consortium that have the missing skill.

To learn more about either, view our Build Talent Pipeline or Share Expertise Across a Consortia or Network use cases.