{"id":61665,"date":"2021-12-22T18:48:57","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T18:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/explore.local\/2021\/12\/22\/closing-the-skills-gap-with-data-and-skill-analytics\/"},"modified":"2025-04-04T19:56:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T19:56:18","slug":"closing-the-skills-gap-with-data-and-skill-analytics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/degreed.com\/experience\/blog\/closing-the-skills-gap-with-data-and-skill-analytics\/","title":{"rendered":"Upskilling Survival Guide, Part 2: Close Skill Gaps with Data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Things are changing \u2014 quickly. And how you respond can make or break your company\u2019s near-term success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a large majority (87%<\/a>) of companies worldwide aware that they have or will have a skills gap within a few years, you may be thinking about how to build or improve your upskilling strategy to address critical business needs. Maybe you have a fully implemented plan to address a skills gap at your company. Perhaps you have some emerging ideas, or none yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter where you stand, we\u2019re here to help. That\u2019s why we created our Upskilling Strategy Audit<\/a>, with the goal to help you see what\u2019s working, assess your biggest challenges, and figure out solutions. In turn, we learned a lot and built a personalized pathway of content and tools to help you succeed delivered directly to you. Sounds great, right? If you haven\u2019t already, you can still take the quiz<\/a>! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of the audit provide a peek into what\u2019s lacking, working and wanted at companies large and small. And that\u2019s where this new three-part blog series comes in \u2014 to help you understand the L&D landscape so you can increase participation<\/a>, maximize insights and provide your people with real-life learning opportunities. In this second part, let\u2019s focus on how using skill analytics and data can give you vital insights and visibility into your workforce and help you address the skills gap at your organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Skill Data and Analytics? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Without the insights provided by skill data and analytics, businesses can\u2019t make the smartest decisions about the skills they need for growth. They have less visibility into what skills their people have, what skill gaps exist and what skills their people need to learn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skill data can help uncover areas of weakness at your organization and point you toward tactics that can help it improve. You can use skill data to identify and develop future skills, find growth opportunities and identify strengths and risks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start using skill data, consider your personal, team or organizational goals. What\u2019s important? Once you identify these goals, you can begin finding and tracking success metrics that matter to your organization and people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking to Tomorrow<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Learning teams these days are expected to close skill gaps while making the workforce more agile, innovative and inclusive. But more than half of business leaders (53%, ac<\/a>c<\/a>ording to Gartner<\/a>) say a lack of visibility into skills is their top barrier to workforce transformation. Respondents to our audit relate to this, with 56% selecting lack of visibility and accuracy into people\u2019s skills and skill gaps as their most pressing challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Out<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Other respondents\u2019 most pressing issues included the need for a system that shows career pathing potential (30%) and having a fragmented learning system (14.5%). How can you get insights and identify opportunities in one spot? By tracking, using and understanding skill analytics within a smart system like Degreed<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2023, 40% of large organizations will have deployed learning analytics technologies, according to Gartner<\/a>. Understanding the bigger picture of skills and skill analytics is important to more than business and learning leaders. In our research report State of Skills<\/a><\/em>, more than a third (38%) of workers say they feel less confident now than they did before the pandemic that they have the skills to do their jobs effectively. And nearly half (46%) predict their current skills will become obsolete in the next three to five years.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you do to ease your people\u2019s concerns and boost your company\u2019s odds of success? Address your internal skills gap head-on. Look at the entirety of your organization\u2019s existing skills, invest in the right resources to develop your people and build a culture of continuous learning and development to ensure long-term growth and success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solving for Tomorrow<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Understanding the supply and demand for skills at your company is critical to your upskilling and reskilling strategy. It\u2019s helpful to know which skills are growing or declining in value in your country, business, and role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet 46% of respondents from our audit don\u2019t collect skill data, 30% use a manual, in-house system like Excel and 22% use multiple tools. Other respondents use a HCM system or look at resumes, which are not entirely accurate or measurable of skills in action. Only 19% of respondents are using a smart system to intuitively understand skills inventory and performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"How<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to know where to begin with skill data and how to harness all of its power. There are countless ways to analyze skill data and apply it to your organizational and individual goals. A simple way to gain new ideas and strategies is to look to those who are on the same path. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Degreed client FICO uses skill data<\/a> as a tool for informing and creating targeted initiatives and personalized learning plans. These are directly aligned with the strategic priorities of the credit ratings company, which provides analytics software solutions to banks, insurance companies, telecommunications firms, retailers and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditional learning data often emphasizes course completions and time spent learning making it hard to tie it directly to business outcomes. \u201cThe same can\u2019t be said of skill data,\u201d said Chrissy Chamberlain, Sr. Director of Digital Learning. \u201cThat\u2019s because business strategies at their core have a set of skill and talent requirements to achieve successful outcomes, not a set of training requirements. And skills are measurable. You can put a scale to it. You can wrap context around it. You can track an upskilling development journey from novice to intermediate to expert, and learning then becomes a supported activity within that journey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, skills are trackable, measurable and scalable<\/a>. And when you track the supply and demand of skills with a smart system like Degreed, you can: <\/p>\n\n\n\n