Unleash SFIA Version 9 and Transform Your Digital Skills Management Strategy

Introduction

Emerging technologies and fast-moving industry trends make it imperative that organizations stay current with the digital skills they require to remain competitive.

The SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age) skills framework is a recognized worldwide standard for defining digital skills. The impending version (9) makes the case for using the framework more compelling.

A well-structured taxonomy and consistent definition of skills (with demonstrable proficiency levels) make SFIA an excellent foundation for developing your Talent Management strategy, whichever organization, industry sector, country or region your organization represents.

Why All the Fuss About Skills-based Talent Management?

It has been said that skills are the foundation of Talent Management. Recently, the crescendo of voices has significantly increased as more organizations advocate for being a skills-based organization. What business value do skills provide your organization with?

This question serves as a tool for realistically positioning the value of skills and frameworks such as SFIA within your organization. Let’s consider the facts. Skills enable your organization to identify and target the acquisition, development and retention of human factors that will lead your organization to successful business performance. It’s that fundamental! Digital skills are no different in that respect.

A skills framework such as SFIA, allied with the right tools, will provide you with the skills, intelligence and insights to help your workforce grow and thrive. For instance, with workforce planning, SFIA will help to inform your recruitment processes and planning despite unexpected departures and/or transformation projects. Knowing which skills are critical to the organization’s successful performance, which ones are at risk and how you can most effectively acquire them should the unexpected occur will become an integral part of your Talent Management strategy. The only possible way to successfully address these questions is by capturing skills data by using a consistent and well-designed framework such as SFIA.

Name the Talent and Business Outcomes

If you are to undertake a skills management program, whether using SFIA or not, it’s imperative to ‘sell’ the benefits of the approach to the organization. Here are some immediate selling points; the list isn’t exhaustive; however, it represents many of the areas in which we see organizations leverage the benefits of using SFIA:

Workforce Planning

• Understand which skills the business needs to perform successfully.
• Make informed decisions on those that it needs to develop or gain.
• Ascertain skills required to support assignment-based working and identify skilled employees.
• Create employee talent profiles as resumes for client projects and proposals.

Recruitment

• Establish and articulate critical skill requirements for ‘new hires.’
• Match candidates to roles based on clearly defined vital skills and specific levels of expertise.
• Create interview guides to promote consistent, fair and inclusive recruitment processes.

Learning and Development

• Help employees to assess their current skills and to identify gaps for further development.
• Map learning assets to skills to maximize the ROI of your organization’s Learning Management System (LMS).
• Identify skill experts who can mentor and coach others in the organization.
• Target business-critical skills to provide business justification for your learning budget.

Career Planning

• Create and provide visibility of organizational career pathways.
• Identify career growth opportunities for each employee.
• Help employees to develop their Personal Development Plans.
• Support talent mobility – vertical, lateral and diagonal career moves.

Get a Head Start

Building SFIA-based job profiles and descriptions, including skills that are essential for the job and the level that best describes what is required to be successful in the job, will help to reduce business risk and increase the chances of attracting, recruiting, developing and retaining individuals with the optimum mix of skills, at the right level.

Lexonis and SFIA v9

At Lexonis, we help clients build and shape job skill profiles by identifying the right skills for successful performance. Lexonis’ extensive library of job families, SFIA-based job profile templates, learning and development activities, and interview questions will help you fast-track your efforts and derive the benefits of implementing the framework. Our founders developed the first accredited software for SFIA and allied with our job library and consulting expertise, we are in the best position to help you make your implementation of SFIA v9 a success!

So, if you are interested in using SFIA and the impending version 9 of the framework and you’re not sure how to get started or would like to know more about the benefits of implementing SFIA, have a chat with one of our SFIA-accredited consultants.

You may also be interested to read: 

Selling The SFIA IT Skills Framework to Your IT Leadership Team