The problem

Great resignation data suggests that the top reason for employees resigning was not pay but lack of ability to climb career ladders and growth pathways within their organization. As the priorities of today’s library continue to evolve, it is easy for employees across the ranks to feel out of touch with how their work fits into the broader plan. It also makes it difficult for them to imagine what their future could be at the organization, leading to low morale and retention rates. Without a clear communication plan from the top down, only a small group of employees are aware of where the organization is focusing. 

On the other hand, administrators struggle to keep a pulse on employee interests and goals. The annual review process gives some insight into this. But that, too, requires a culture of trust and transparency that may or may not exist. Even in environments where communication is strong and trust has been established, the amount of time it takes to survey and analyze employee goals at scale is substantial. With increased workloads across the library, employee development and goal setting are among the top initiatives to get deprioritized due to the current manual nature of the task.

The Solution

Skilltype creates a single source of truth for the library’s needs and priorities for all employees to see. Administrators can keep this needs assessment up to date within a few clicks, communicating changes to employees instantly. This alleviates pressure on managers to be proactive and extroverted in their supervisory relationships and leverage support from the administration in communicating changing needs.

Employees can create personal profiles that capture their skills, interests, and priorities. Access to the organization’s needs during this process makes it easier for the employee to align their interest with the organization’s needs, which is the beginning of establishing career ladders. 

Skilltype’s Skills Ontology supplements the library’s local job and role hierarchy, helping ensure employees align with the profession-at-large as it evolves. Employees can also select a job category within Skilltype to help influence the training recommendations they receive as they develop a career ladder.

Finally, managers can use Skilltype Lists to create specific career ladders within their organization. By leveraging Skilltype’s Central Index of over 11,000 curated resources, alongside tools to manage local trainings, managers can design training pathways to help employees go from beginner to expert in specific job roles based on the library’s needs.