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Quick Summary: Competency frameworks in SkillsDB let admins define job roles with required skills, proficiency benchmarks, and career progression levels. Once built, people are assigned to roles so skill gaps and training needs can be tracked automatically.

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Overview

A competency framework defines what skills, knowledge, and proficiency levels are expected for a given job role within your organization. In SkillsDB, competency frameworks are built around Careers — structured job roles that combine required skills, proficiency benchmarks, and optional career progression levels. When a person is assigned to a Career, SkillsDB automatically compares their current skill grades against the role’s benchmarks. This produces a real-time view of skill gaps, training completion status, and overall readiness — without any manual calculation. Competency frameworks in SkillsDB serve as the foundation for skills assessments, training tracking, and workforce analytics. They connect your organization’s role definitions directly to individual skill profiles, creating a single source of truth for workforce competency data. Only Company Administrators can create and manage competency frameworks. Once built, the framework drives visibility for managers and employees — surfacing relevant skill gaps, training assignments, and career dashboards within each person’s profile.

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Prerequisites

Before you build a competency framework, you need:
  • Permission level: Company Administrator role
  • Feature availability: The Competency Framework module must be enabled for your organization. Contact your account manager if the Careers option is not visible in the sidebar.
  • Access path: Navigate to Library > Careers from the left sidebar

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Understanding Competency Frameworks in SkillsDB

Competency frameworks in SkillsDB are built from four core components that work together:
ComponentPurposeExample
CareerThe job role itself — the top-level container”Software Engineer”, “Nurse Clinician”
SkillsSpecific competencies required for the role, each with a proficiency benchmark”Python” with a benchmark of “Proficient”
SectionsLogical groupings of skills within a role”Technical Skills”, “Leadership”, “Safety”
LevelsCareer progression tiers with level-specific benchmarks”Junior”, “Senior”, “Lead”
You can build a framework incrementally — create the Career first, then add skills, organize them into sections, and define levels at your own pace. Each component is optional except for the Career itself.
Note: The proficiency benchmarks (e.g., grades like 1–5 or letter grades) are determined by your organization’s grading scale, which is configured separately by your account admin. Benchmarks you set in a Career reference that grading scale.

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Creating a Career

Creating a Career is the first step in building a competency framework. Each Career represents one job role or position type in your organization.
  1. Navigate to Library > Careers from the left sidebar
  2. Select Create Career in the top-right navbar
  3. In the Create Career modal, enter a Career Name — this is required and should be unique and descriptive (e.g., Software Engineer, Field Technician)
  4. Optionally select an icon to visually identify the career
  5. Select a Career Type from the dropdown to categorize this role (defaults to “Job Role”). Career types help group and filter careers across your organization
  6. Select Save
The new Career appears in the Careers table and is immediately available for skills, levels, and people assignments. Select the Career name to open its detail page and begin building the framework.
Tip: Use Career Types consistently to categorize your roles (e.g., “Job Role”, “Functional Area”, “Department”). You can manage available types using the Manage Types button in the Careers navbar.

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Adding Skills to a Career

Skills are the core of a competency framework. Each skill attached to a Career includes an optional proficiency benchmark — the expected grade an employee should reach for that role.

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Adding an existing skill

  1. Navigate to Library > Careers and select the Career you want to edit
  2. In the Skills section, select Add Skill
  3. In the Add Skills modal, use the search box to find an existing skill from your organization’s skill library
  4. Select the skill from the results
  5. Optionally set a Benchmark — the proficiency level expected for this role (e.g., “Proficient”, “Expert”). If no benchmark is set, the skill is tracked but not compared against a target
  6. Select Save
The skill is added to the Career and appears in the Skills section. If you have defined Sections, you can assign the skill to a section at this step or move it later.

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Creating a new skill directly

If the skill you need does not yet exist in your library, you can create it directly from the Add Skills modal.
  1. In the Add Skills modal, enter the new skill name in the search box
  2. When no existing skill matches, a form appears to define the new skill
  3. Enter the Skill name (required) — for example, Skills Management
  4. Optionally enter a Description
  5. Optionally set a Benchmark
  6. Select Save
The new skill is created in your organization’s library and immediately added to the Career.

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Organizing Skills into Sections

Sections let you group skills within a Career into logical categories. This makes large competency frameworks easier to read and navigate — both for admins and employees.

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Adding a section

  1. On the Career detail page, select Add Section in the Skills area
  2. In the Add Section modal, enter a Section Name (required) — for example, Technical Skills or Core Competencies
  3. Optionally enter a Section Description
  4. Select Save
The section appears in the Career’s skill list. Existing skills not yet in a section can be moved into it, and new skills can be added directly to any section using that section’s own Add Skill button.
Note: The first section you create groups all existing unsectioned skills into it automatically. Additional sections start empty and require skills to be added directly.

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Editing or removing a section

To edit a section’s name or description, select Edit Section next to the section header. To remove a section, use the delete option in the section settings. Removing a section does not delete the skills inside it — they revert to the unsectioned state.

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Managing Career Levels

Career levels define progression tiers within a job role — for example, Junior, Mid-Level, and Senior. When levels are defined, each skill in the Career can have a different proficiency benchmark per level, allowing SkillsDB to track progression requirements precisely.

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Adding levels

  1. On the Career detail page, select Manage Levels in the Skills section
  2. In the Manage Levels drawer, select Add Level
  3. Enter a Title for the level — for example, Junior, Senior, or Lead
  4. Repeat for each level in the progression
  5. Drag levels to reorder them to reflect the correct progression sequence
  6. Select Save
Levels appear as columns in the Skills view. For each skill and level combination, you can set an independent benchmark.

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Level-specific benchmarks

Once levels are defined, open any skill card in the Career to set level-specific expectations. A skill can be enabled or disabled for each level, and each enabled level can have its own benchmark. This allows you to specify, for example, that a Junior needs “Awareness” of a skill while a Senior needs “Proficient.”
Tip: Define levels before assigning people. When you assign someone to a Career, you can also specify their current level, which determines which benchmarks apply to that person.

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Configuring Career Settings

Each Career has a settings panel that controls which SkillsDB features are active for that role. Settings are configured per Career, allowing different roles to have different tracking behavior.
  1. On the Career detail page, select Settings in the top navbar
  2. The Career Settings modal opens with the following options

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Proficiency Grading

Toggle: Proficiency Grading When enabled, skill proficiency grades are tracked and grade columns appear throughout SkillsDB for this career’s skills. When disabled, grade columns are hidden and grading data is excluded from search and analytics. Assessments require Proficiency Grading to be enabled. If you disable Proficiency Grading, assessments for this Career’s skills will also be unavailable.

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Training Dates

Toggle: Training Dates When enabled, users can request training approval for skills in this Career, and the skills appear in Team > Training > Training Matrix. When disabled, training approval tracking is turned off for this Career. If Training Dates is enabled, a Training Timeline section appears. Use this field to set the expected total time for employees to complete training approval for all skills in the Career. Enter values in days, months, and/or years.

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Assessments

Toggle: Assessments When enabled, skills from this Career are included in manager and self-assessments. When disabled, skills from this Career are excluded from all assessments. Assessments require Proficiency Grading to be active. If Proficiency Grading is disabled, the Assessments toggle has no effect.

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User Dashboard

Toggle: User Dashboard When enabled, employees assigned to this Career see a career-specific dashboard at Profile > Career > Overview. When disabled, no career dashboard is shown. When the User Dashboard is enabled, the following dashboard components can be individually toggled:
  • Career Description — displays the career’s description text
  • Training Dates Summary — shows training approval status and completion
  • Proficiency Summary — shows skill gap analysis vs. benchmarks
  • Pinned Pages — displays pinned resources and links
  1. Select Save Settings to apply changes
Important: Disabling Proficiency Grading on an active Career will hide all grade data from search, analytics, and skills matrices for that Career’s skills. Existing grade data is preserved and reappears if you re-enable Proficiency Grading later.

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Assigning People to a Career

Assigning people to a Career establishes their competency expectations. Once assigned, SkillsDB compares each person’s current skill grades to the Career’s benchmarks and surfaces gaps in their profile, their manager’s view, and organization-wide analytics.
  1. On the Career detail page, select Assign in the top navbar
  2. The Assign Career drawer opens, showing a list of people in your organization
  3. Find the person you want to assign using the search or scroll
  4. If Levels are defined for this Career, select the appropriate level for the person
  5. Select Assign next to the person’s name
The person is immediately assigned to the Career. Their Skills Profile now reflects the Career’s skill requirements and benchmarks, and skill gaps become visible to both the employee and their manager. To remove an assignment, return to the Assign Career drawer, find the person, and select Unassign.
Note: A person can be assigned to multiple Careers simultaneously. Each Career’s benchmarks are tracked independently, and the Skills Profile shows gaps for all assigned Careers.

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Deleting a Career

Deleting a Career removes the framework entirely, including all skill attachments, section groupings, and level definitions. People assigned to the Career are unassigned automatically.
  1. Navigate to Library > Careers
  2. Find the Career in the table and select the Delete icon
  3. A confirmation dialog appears: “Are you sure you want to delete ‘Career Name’?”
  4. If the Career has assigned people, sections, skills, or levels, a Force Delete confirmation appears listing the affected counts. Confirm to proceed
Important: Deleting a Career does not delete the underlying skills from your organization’s skill library. Skills are shared resources and remain available for other Careers after deletion.

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Common Questions

Yes. Skills in SkillsDB are shared across the organization’s skill library. The same skill can appear in multiple Careers with different benchmarks in each. For example, “Communication” might have a benchmark of “Proficient” in a Junior Engineer career and “Expert” in a Senior Manager career.
When you assign someone to a Career, SkillsDB immediately calculates skill gaps by comparing the Career’s benchmarks to the person’s current grades. Gaps appear on the employee’s Skills Profile, the manager’s team view, and in organization-wide analytics. The person also gains access to the Career dashboard (if enabled in Career Settings).
Yes. When you have defined Levels for a Career, each skill can have a level-specific benchmark. This allows you to define distinct proficiency expectations for Junior, Mid-Level, and Senior employees within the same Career.
A Career is an individual job role (e.g., “Software Engineer”). A Career Type is a classification category that groups related Careers together (e.g., “Engineering”, “Clinical”, “Operations”). Career Types are used for filtering and reporting purposes but do not affect competency tracking. You can manage Career Types by selecting Manage Types in the Careers navbar.
Yes. Career Settings are configured per Career. Navigate to the specific Career, select Settings, and toggle Assessments or Training Dates off. This disables those features only for skills belonging to that Career, without affecting other Careers.
No. Only Company Administrators can create, edit, and delete Careers or modify the skills, sections, and levels within a framework. Managers can view the Careers assigned to their team members and see skill gaps, but cannot modify the framework itself. Standard users can view their own Career assignments and skill gaps in their profile.
When you delete a Career with assigned people, SkillsDB shows a force-delete confirmation that lists the number of people assigned, sections, skills, and levels affected. If you confirm the deletion, all people are automatically unassigned from the Career. Their individual skill grades are preserved — only the Career assignment and benchmark comparisons are removed.

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Related Articles

Skills Matrix

View a visual matrix of skill grades across your workforce, filtered by Career

Training Matrix

Track training approval status for all skills in a Career across your team

Career Pathways

Define progression paths between Careers

Promotion Workflows

Automate role transitions based on Career performance

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Need Help?

If you run into any issues or have questions, reach out to your organization’s SkillsDB administrator or contact SkillsDB Support.