Unlocking the Power of Skills Data for the Future of Work

Skills serve as the fundamental currency of the labor market; they represent what employers seek, what workers offer, and what educational and training providers deliver. However, defining, measuring, and communicating skills consistently and meaningfully presents a significant challenge. This underscores the critical need for a unified skills data standard.

The Imperative for a Skills Data Standard

A skills data standard comprises a set of rules and specifications that govern the structuring, representation, and exchange of skills information. It establishes a common language that enables various systems and stakeholders to understand and utilize skills data effectively. By adopting a skills data standard, we can realize several crucial benefits:

• Exchange of Skills as Discrete Entities: Highlighting the capability to package skills as discrete entities for delivery to consumers of skills data and taxonomies. This includes formatting skill taxonomies into a consumable foundational payload containing individual skills with references to their source, definition, and associated job roles.

• Improvement of Quality and Transparency: Ensuring that the skills data collected and disseminated is valid, reliable, and comparable, thereby avoiding duplication, inconsistency, and ambiguity.

• Enhancement of Interoperability and Usability: Facilitating seamless exchange and integration of skills data across different systems, platforms, and existing industry standards , allowing access and analysis of skills data from multiple sources and formats.

• Unification and mapping of skill definitions such that the workgroup would strive to unify skills data on worker profiles, assessment results, and learning outcomes.

• Empowerment of Users and Providers: Assisting employers, workers, educators, and policymakers in making informed decisions based on skills data, and effectively communicating skills needs, offerings, and outcomes.

A Collaborative and Evolving Process

A skills data standard is not a one-size-fits-all solution but a flexible and adaptable framework capable of accommodating diverse contexts, domains, and purposes. Its evolution necessitates the input and feedback of various stakeholders and experts.

Joining the Skills Data Workgroup

To realize this vision, we propose establishing a Skills Data Workgroup under the leadership of HR Open. This workgroup will be responsible for developing an end-to-end API-based standard to define the protocol for providing skills data and creating a glossary of common language and terminology to facilitate the generation and consumption of skills proficiency data. Typically, the provider will be a learning vendor or an assessment vendor.

Workgroup Objectives

The primary objectives of the Skills Data Workgroup include:

• Development of Standards: Crafting a common language, API calls, and data mapping for skills data exchange across HCM systems, Talent Management Systems, & Learning systems.

• Driving Adoption of the Standard: Incorporating discussions on driving the adoption of the Skills Data Standard as a standing topic during workgroup meetings. This will include strategies for ongoing socialization and industry engagement to ensure widespread acceptance and implementation.

• Enablement of Integration: Ensuring seamless integration of skills data within Human Capital Management (HCM) platforms, Talent Management Systems (TMS), Learning Experience Platforms (LxP), and skills assessment platforms.

• Promotion of Adoption: Driving industry-wide adoption of these standards to support skills-based hiring, train-to-hire programs, internal talent mobility, and workforce evaluation.

• Addressing Market Gaps: Tackling the lack of standardized methods for transferring skills data across different systems.

• Supporting Industry Initiatives: Aligning with industry initiatives such as the IEEE Learning Technology Steering Committee (LTSC), One EdTech and the T3 Network to ensure broader acceptance and implementation.  Alignment with the mission of the Velocity Foundation including an effort to make the Skills Data Standard a Layer 2 schema.

Advantages of Standardized Skills Data

Implementing a standardized approach to skills data will yield numerous benefits, including:

• Enhanced Talent Acquisition: Enabling more accurate matching of candidates with the required skills for specific job roles.

• Improved Performance Management: Linking skills development to performance goals, thereby enhancing employee performance and productivity.

• Effective Succession Planning: Identifying high-potential employees with the requisite skills for future leadership roles.

• Streamlined Internal Mobility: Creating opportunities for employees to utilize their skills within the organization, promoting career growth and retention.

• Data-Driven Decision Making: Leveraging skills data for strategic HR initiatives and informed decision-making.

• Economic development: Create strategies to expand the skilled workforce by engaging and upskilling underutilized populations.

Next Steps

We invite you to join us in our mission to establish a skills data standard for the future of work. Visit our website HR Open Standards [www.hropenstandards.org] to learn more about our proposed workgroup and how you can contribute. Your participation and insights are invaluable as we strive to refine and implement the skills data standard. Together, we can ensure that skills data works for everyone.

Complete the form below to receive more information and get involved.