A skills inventory tool letting you do it your way
Move your data from clunky spreadsheets and Excel into a digital skills library. Use your new job skills inventory to make data-driven decisions and evolve employees’ skills so individuals and teams can thrive.
Join hundreds of global leaders who trust Skills Base with their Skills Inventory
An employee skills inventory that evolves over time
A structured-subjective approach to skills inventory assessment
Powerful employee, team and organization reporting
The centralized digital skills inventory allows us to quickly link experts to our clients needs enabling the high quality delivery we are known for.
The Skills Taxonomy FAQ: Structuring Your Workforce Data
What is a skills taxonomy?
A skills taxonomy is the structured backbone of your talent strategy. It is more than just a flat list of buzzwords; it is a comprehensive inventory of every skill, certification, and competency required to run your business. These data points are organized into logical groups and clusters, creating a unified framework that defines exactly what “good” looks like across the organization.
How is a taxonomy different from a simple skills list?
A simple list is unstructured and often repetitive (e.g., having separate entries for “Sales,” “Selling,” and “Business Development”). A taxonomy—or ontology—creates a standardized architecture. It defines the relationships between a broad competency and specific technical skills, ensuring that the entire workforce speaks the same language. This structure transforms chaotic data into a searchable directory of organizational capability.
Why can't we just manage our skills inventory in Excel?
Spreadsheets are two-dimensional tools ill-suited for a multi-dimensional ontology. A spreadsheet forces you to treat skills as a static text list, making it nearly impossible to map complex relationships between roles, proficiency levels, and adjacent skills. A dedicated platform turns this directory into a living ecosystem, allowing your workforce data to remain dynamic, scalable, and verified without the version-control nightmares of Excel.
How granular should our skills directory be?
Finding the right balance is key. If your inventory is too broad (e.g., “Communication”), the data becomes actionable. If it is too granular (e.g., “Writing email subject lines”), the ontology becomes bloated and unmanageable. Best practice suggests mapping skills at a “transferable” level—focusing on the core competencies that define a role’s success—so that you can easily match talent to opportunities across different departments.
Why is a standardized ontology important for internal mobility?
Without a standardized inventory, one department might call a skill “Client Relations” while another calls it “Account Management.” This disconnect makes it impossible to see who in your workforce could transfer to a new role. A unified ontology removes these silos, creating a clear directory of transferrable skills that empowers talent to move vertically or laterally within the company.
Where do we start when building a skills taxonomy?
Do not try to build a perfect ontology from scratch. Start by auditing your existing job descriptions and learning content to create a baseline list. Then, validate this initial inventory with your subject matter experts. The goal is to establish a “Minimum Viable Taxonomy” that covers your critical roles first, allowing you to capture essential competency data immediately while you expand the directory over time.
