Glossary
Clarifying the concepts within SkillsDB
Assessments
Grading workflows for users to periodically update their Skills. Administrators configure the regularity of when these assessments are sent out and due.
Assessment Schedule
An administrator-defined schedule for prompting employees and managers to complete and/or update their grading.
Benchmarks
An optional, desired grade established for Skills as a function of a given Role, Group, Certification or Checklist. For example, “for X role, we have a Benchmark of Y for Skill 123”. Default Benchmark Grades can be set, and they can be adjusted by managers for specific employees (Custom Benchmarks).
Certifications
A formally awarded verification that typically comes with official documentation and may have renewal deadlines (e.g. a food handler’s license or a project management certification). Certifications can also be internally-issued concepts to be tracked for employees.
Checklists
Checklists create a structured system for structured training policies assigned to specific groups of employees that typically require an audit log. Many Checklists are the subject of internal and external compliance, require various kinds of sign-offs when complete, and to be renewed by employees on an on-going basis.
Custom Benchmarks
A manager can update a Benchmark for a specific employee with a custom Grade differing from the optionally established Benchmark for a particular Skill in a Role or Group. Custom Benchmarks display in the Skills Profile and Assessment areas.
Global Administrator
A customer administrator (or admin) user with global permissions expected to help configure and operate the overall SkillsDB platform within the organization.
Grades
An organization-wide, hardcoded scale with potential grades, typically from 0-5, denoting a specific competence for each Skill across your organization.
Grading Rubric (or Scale)
A general purpose definition for each grade (0-5, N/A). These are customizable for the customer SkillsDB instance, but there is a default starting point.
Groups
An optional customer-defined grouping of Skills that defines a specific area of expertise, e.g. supply chain, e-commerce loyalty, customer name, etc. Employees can be assigned to one or multiple groups, much like Roles. Typically, customers will use Groups for job family-related competency groupings, or customer or project related groupings.
Job Families
The initial way to establish and organize job architecture. Roles and Groups can help to organize job families.
Job Title
The individual short description of an employee, typically correlating to at least one Role and the employee’s level within the hierarchy of the organization.
Learning Library
The entire collection of Learning Resources can be viewed in the Learning Library. Permissioned users can add content from any source, and connect each to Skills(s).
Learning Plan
A designated area for employees to view and interact with Learning Resources. These can be added by the employee or their manager.
Learning Resources
Courses, training materials, SOPs, videos, web pages and other learning content from any source can be imported or integrated into SkillsDB, and exist in the Learning Library. These are all Learning Resources, and can be added to any user's Learning Plan.
Levels
Roles and Groups can have custom career ladders, or Levels. There can be any number of Levels all with optional custom naming (e.g., Junior (L1), Senior (L2), etc.). Levels provide a grouping of skills to be ascribed to employees, for instance the Skills Profile for an Accountant may have two Levels, Junior and Senior. Those two Levels can have slightly different, though possibly overlapping, Skills Profiles.
Manager Assessments
Once an Admin launches an Assessment, Managers may be invited to participate as both an employee (to grade themselves) and, if they have a team underneath them, as a Manager. This allows Managers to use the Assessment flow to update Grades for each employee under them.
Manager Grading
At any time, a Manager can view an employee's Skills Profile and update their grade for that employee.
Organizational (Org) Structure
A configuration in SkillsDB reflecting the structure of the customer organization in terms of business units, divisions, regions, sites, departments, teams, shifts, projects, etc.
Reporting Structure
A configuration in SkillsDB that reflects who each employee reports to, the “span of control” for each manager and overall reporting lines.
Roles
Logical groupings of skills around shared job functions, similar (or the same as) job titles. For instance, Java Developer or Support Manager. One or more Roles can be assigned to people in the organization, which then displays in the employee's Skills Profile.
Scorecards
Once an Assessment is complete, its permanent results are displayed in a Scorecard. Here, users will see their Grades, their manager's Grades of their managers, Skills Focus and Learning Resources connected to each Skill.
Sections
Inside of a Role or a Group, Skills can be grouped together into a logical order, or Sections. Sections represent the underlying collections of Skills, both in data and visually.
Self Assessments
Once Roles or Groups are assigned to individual employees and an admin launches an Assessment, employees will be invited to start the process and can Grade themselves. Once an Assessment is submitted and complete, the results display in a Scorecard.
Skill
A specific defined competence. Each Skill record is unique across a customer organization, and confidential to that customer. Skills can be connected to Roles, Groups, Checklists, specific employees as Additional Skills, as well as Learning Resources and other key features throughout the platform.
Skill Gap
Any difference between employee Grades and the optional Benchmark.
Skills Library
The catalog of Skill records unique to each customer. The Skills Library is created initially during onboarding and is constantly updated over time in conjunction with the creation/updating of Roles, Groups, Competencies, Checklists, Certifications, etc.
Skills Profile
A collection of Skills associated with an individual employee, as well as other concepts within SkillsDB such as a Role, Group, Certification or Checklists.
Skill Variance
Any difference between the employee Grades and manager Grades. Currently, these only display in Scorecards after an Assessment is submitted and complete.
User Permissions
A configuration in SkillsDB that determines, for each user based on their user type, what actions are allowed and what information they can access. Permissions may be individually assigned, or assigned on the basis of a the Org Structure and Reporting Structure.