Why building a Skills Taxonomy can feel like herding cats!

We’ve all heard the phrase “herding cats,” and if you’ve ever tried it, you know why it’s such a perfect metaphor for chaos! As a proud cat parent to three mischievous furballs, I can confirm: they absolutely have minds of their own. Try to get them to do anything in unison, and it’s pure pandemonium.

Sometimes, managing co-workers—or building a skills taxonomy —feels the same way.

That’s why creating a tailored skills taxonomy is one of the biggest pain points we hear about from customers as they embark on the journey to become skills-based. The question comes up time and again: “How do I even start?”

Over the years, we’ve approached this challenge in three ways:

  1. You’ve already got a taxonomy? Fantastic!

    This is the best-case scenario. Customers can upload their existing skills library directly into Skills Base and start assessing their teams, departments, or entire organizations within minutes.



  2. Use our skills library as a foundation.

    With thousands of roles, categories, and skills, our pre-built library can save time. However, we’ve learned that generic libraries can sometimes miss the mark. While great as a starting point, they often lack the granularity needed to address unique organizational contexts.



  3. Need help building one? We’ve got you covered.

    Our skilled analysts work closely with customers to create or refine their taxonomies. Even if you already have one, we’ll review it and make tailored recommendations to ensure it’s optimized for your needs.

Now, we’re tackling this challenge head-on by creating a best-practice process that any organization can use to craft their own skills taxonomy—tailored, relevant, and easy to maintain.

We’ve done it before. Our Structured-Subjective approach to assessing skills was an industry first, saving organizations years of time by balancing accuracy with simplicity. But this new initiative is a whole new ballgame, and we’re excited to take it on.

Here's the plan

Over the next three months, we’re developing a process and an AI-powered toolset to help organizations create bespoke, actionable skills taxonomies in no time.

And the best part? We’re making it available for free.

Of course, this won’t be without challenges. For example:

  • How do we tailor skill names to match unique organizational needs?
  • How do we create uniformity while maintaining relevance across disciplines?
  • How do we ensure usability and long-term maintainability?

These are big questions, but with over a decade of experience working with some of the world’s leading organizations, we’re confident we can find the answers. We’ve already got some exciting ideas and can’t wait to share them with you as we progress.

We’ll be providing regular updates on this journey, so stay tuned. And when it’s ready, you’ll be among the first to get your hands on this game-changing tool.

Now, back to herding my own set of cats. Where did I leave that… catnip?

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