Who Should Take the Lead in Skills Management?

With the fast pace and competitiveness of the business environment in Singapore, organisations must constantly evolve to stay relevant and ahead of the curve. One critical way to ensure this adaptability is through effective skills management—ensuring that employees have the appropriate skill set to meet both current challenges and future demands. As new technologies, market shifts, and changing consumer behaviours reshape industries, having a well-structured approach to identifying, assessing, and developing talent is essential for long-term success. 

But who within the organisation is best equipped to take the lead in overseeing and driving skills management efforts? Before we can determine who is best equipped to manage and develop talent in the organisation, we must first understand what skills management entails.

What is Skills Management?

Skills management is more than just a buzzword; it's a strategic process vital to the health and growth of any organisation. At its core, skills management refers to the systematic process of identifying, evaluating, and developing the skills within your workforce to meet organisational objectives. Beyond merely ‘filling gaps’, it is what helps your organisation build a workforce that is adaptive, innovative, and future-ready if you implement it effectively. 

A robust skills management system is multi-faceted and encompasses several core components:

• Knowledge: This includes theoretical understanding, company-specific insights, and any industry-required certifications or training.
• Hard skills: These are the technical, measurable proficiencies necessary for executing job-specific tasks. They can range from technical abilities like data analysis and coding to specialised expertise in areas like digital marketing or project management.
• Soft skills: Attributes like leadership, communication, collaboration, and emotional intelligence play a pivotal role in ensuring success in any role.

Key Objectives of Skills Management

An effective skills management strategy serves several critical objectives that enhance both the performance of your organisation and your talent: 

• Evaluating Skills: This allows businesses to evaluate employee capabilities and determine areas that require upskilling or reskilling. By conducting thorough skills assessments, organisations can gain valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of their workforce, enabling them to make informed decisions about talent development and deployment.
• Anticipating Skills Needs: A forward-thinking approach helps businesses foresee the skills required in the future. By anticipating these needs, companies can proactively train their workforce to stay ahead in the industry. 
• Optimising Individual and Collective Performance: Skills management is not just about individual employee growth. When the right skills are distributed across teams, this could bolster collective performance, potentially improving efficiency, innovation, and productivity. 
• Strengthening Employee Engagement and Motivation: Employees who are offered opportunities for growth and development tend to feel more engaged in their roles. As such, investing in their skills helps them see their future within the company, thereby increasing retention and motivation. 
• Facilitating Talent Management and Development: By creating a clear framework for skills development and career progression, organisations can identify high-potential individuals, provide targeted training, and nurture future leaders. This not only helps to fill critical roles within the company but also enhances the overall quality of the workforce.
• Strengthening Employer Brand: Offering clear paths for career development through structured skills management can help position your company as a top employer. It signals to current and potential employees that your company is committed to their long-term success. 

Who is Qualified to Oversee Skills Management in an Organisation?

The question of who should helm skills management within your organisation isn't a one-size-fits-all answer. It demands careful consideration, taking into account your company’s size, industry, and specific needs. 

Some of the potential candidates for this critical role, each with their pros and cons:

Human Resource (HR) Professionals as the Skills Champion

Pros:

• HR departments are naturally positioned to take the lead in skills management because of their expertise in workforce development. They possess a deep understanding of talent acquisition, performance management, and the training and development process, making them well-equipped to design and implement comprehensive skills management strategies.
• HR has access to key employee data and can provide a centralised approach to managing skills across the entire organisation. This allows for better visibility into skill gaps, redundancies, and opportunities for cross-functional collaboration.

Cons:

• HR might be seen as too bureaucratic with a more generalist approach, which could limit a deep understanding of individual business unit needs. The focus on standardised processes and procedures may hinder the ability to tailor skills development initiatives to the specific requirements of different departments or roles.
• While HR excels at managing administrative aspects of skills management, they may lack the strategic perspective needed to align skills development with long-term business goals. The focus could lean more towards compliance and processes rather than the specific needs of departments, potentially missing out on opportunities for innovation and growth.

Business Units as Skills Owners

Pros:

• Business units have intimate knowledge of the skills required for success within their specific domains, which could make them ideal for facilitating skills management. They understand the intricacies of their workflows, business practices, and customer needs, enabling them to identify and develop the skills their talent needs to contribute to their company’s objectives.
• Allowing business units to oversee skills management ensures that talent development is aligned directly with departmental objectives, which could improve targeted performance. By tailoring skills development initiatives to their unique needs, business units can potentially optimise operations within their respective areas.

Cons:

• Without centralised coordination, there could be inconsistencies in how skills are managed across departments, leading to gaps or redundancies in skills development. Each business unit may adopt different approaches, tools, and metrics, making it difficult to track progress and ensure a cohesive skills strategy across the organisation.
• It could also lead to a fragmented strategy, with each unit working in silos. This could hinder cross-functional collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the development of a holistic view of organisational skills.

Operations as Skills Managers

Pros:

• Operations teams focus on efficiency and productivity, making them well-suited to oversee practical skill implementation in daily workflows. They can identify bottlenecks, streamline processes, and ensure that training and development directly enhance process improvements, leading to tangible business outcomes.
• They are hands-on in understanding workforce needs and can ensure that training and development directly enhance process improvements. By observing employees in action, they can identify skill gaps that impact productivity and implement targeted training programmes to address these deficiencies.

Cons:

• They might lack the strategic perspective needed for broader skills management goals, focusing primarily on short-term operational needs rather than long-term development. While efficiency is crucial, neglecting the cultivation of future skills could leave organisations vulnerable to disruption and unprepared for future challenges.
• There’s a risk of neglecting softer skills that contribute to leadership and team dynamics. While technical skills are essential, interpersonal skills, communication, and critical thinking are equally important for overall organisational success. In some cases, these may be overlooked by the operations team, hindering collaboration and innovation.

Why is Skills Management Important?

When executed well, skills management offers numerous advantages that benefit both employees and the organisation. Some of the most significant include:

1. Improved Talent Management

By understanding the skills your workforce possesses and those they need, your company can potentially attract, develop, and retain top talent more effectively. Skills management allows you to create a clear roadmap for employee development, providing opportunities for growth and advancement. 

2. Enhanced Collaborative Learning and Collective Intelligence

Skills management promotes a culture of knowledge-sharing and innovation. As employees collaborate and learn from one another, it can contribute to a resilient team dynamic that drives innovation. It could encourage cross-functional collaboration and break down silos, enabling employees to leverage diverse perspectives and expertise to solve complex problems.

3. Increased Employee and Leadership Satisfaction

Generally, employees want to feel valued, and when their development is prioritised, they are more likely to be satisfied and productive at work. Similarly, leaders could benefit from having well-trained teams capable of meeting the organisation’s goals.

Additional Organisational Benefits

• Reduced Recruitment Costs: Developing internal talent could minimise the need for costly external hiring.
• Talent Visibility: A skills management system makes it easier to identify internal talent capable of taking on new challenges.
• Flexibility and Adaptation: Having a workforce with up-to-date skills enables the company to adapt quickly to changes in the market.
• Strengthened Collective Intelligence: Encouraging shared learning leads to a smarter, more cohesive workforce.
• Competitive Advantage: Businesses that invest in their employees’ skills are better positioned to compete on both a local and global scale.

Streamline Skills Management with JobKred

Regardless of who leads the initiative—whether HR, business units, or operations—cross-functional collaboration is critical for success. When these departments work together, they can build a skills-based organisation that promotes long-term growth and resilience. To support this collaborative approach, your organisation needs skills management software that can streamline the process, and JobKred offers the features to make that happen.

Our software is tailored for businesses in a wide range of industries, enabling companies of all sizes to align employee development with organisational objectives. Our career development software allows you to create digitised skills frameworks for each employee, offering them a clear and structured career pathway. This not only enhances career development but also helps your organisation stay ahead by identifying valuable emerging skills. 

Additionally, with advanced analytics, you can proactively address skill gaps, compliance issues, and other areas of concern. Through automated benchmark comparisons, you’ll gain valuable insights into your company’s skills health, pinpointing both strengths and areas that need improvement.

Take control of your company’s future by implementing a skills management strategy with JobKred today. For more insight into skills management, check out our guide to conducting a skills audit.

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