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 job role, competency group, or certification. 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 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 sign-offs when complete, and/or need 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 in assessments.

Global Administrator

The administrator(s) user with global permissions expected to help configure and operate the overall SkillsDB platform within your 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 each SkillsDB client instance; there is a default starting point.

Groups (or Competency Groups)

An optional client-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. Typically, SkillsDB clients will use groups for job family-related competency groupings, or customer or project related groupings. Skills inside of a group can be organized by sections and/or levels.

Job Families

Job families are groups of jobs that share similar characteristics, responsibilities, and skills. They are used to categorize positions within an organization based on the nature of the work performed and the qualifications required. Roles and groups in SkillsDB to organize these, and are the core elements of an overarching job architecture.

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 from all sources across the organization (e.g., LinkedIn Learning, Coursera and the internal university).

Learning Plan

A designated area for employees to view and interact with learning resources to complete, typically as part of skill gaps. 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. Learning resources can be added to a 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 (L1) and Senior (L2). Those two Levels can have slightly different, though possibly overlapping, skills profiles for the employees they are assigned to.

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 of their employees.

Manager Grading

At any time, a Manager can view an employee's skills profile and update their grade for that employee.

Organizational Structure

A configuration in SkillsDB reflecting the structure of the client 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” or "chain of command" for each manager and overall reporting lines.

Roles (or Job Roles)

Logical groupings of skills around shared job functions, similar to 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 each of 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 (if managers are included in the assessment), skill flags, and learning resources associated with 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 visually as well as in the data.

Self Assessments

Once roles or groups are assigned to individual employees and an assessment is launched, employees will be invited to start the self assessment process and grade themselves. Once an assessment is submitted and complete, the results display in a scorecard.

Skills

A specific defined competence shared my many employees across an organization. Each skill record is unique and confidential to each client. Skills can be connected to roles, groups, specific employees as additional skills, as well as learning resources and other key features throughout the platform.

Skill Flags

Each skill can be marked per employee, adding context—expert, mentor, focus, interest. Only managers and admins can flag an employee as expert or mentor for skills, while an employee can mark themselves as having interest or to focus.

Skill Gap

The difference between an employee grade and the optional benchmark.

Skills Library

The entire catalog of skill records unique to each client. The skills library is created initially during onboarding and is constantly updated over time in conjunction with the creation and updating of roles, groups, competencies, certifications, etc.

Skill Matrix

A critical chart displaying a role or competency group with all of the assigned people by each skill. These first appeared in the mid-20th century on factory floors, sketched on large boards so supervisors could see who could do what and reassign people fast.

Skills Profile

The collection of skills associated with an individual employee. Each employee's skills profile shows their role(s), group(s), certification(s) and learning resources connected to skills.

Skill Variance

The difference between an employee grade and the manager grade. Some organizations do not use 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.