Brains inventories - knowledge management - News Briefs - Industry Trend or Event - Brief Article

Here are three questions to ask yourself next time you place a help-wanted ad: Is my IS shop seen to be a good place to work? Can I keep the talent I have? Can I add to the talent I have?

If you don't get three "yes" responses, it's time to consider a more systematic approach to assessing the skill you have and the skills you need, says Hank Riehl, CEO of SkillView Technologies Inc., a Plaistow, N.H., supplier of human resources software and services for IS shops.

Riehl's rationale is that given today's skills crunch, no IS shop can afford long hiring cycles and other recruiting inefficiencies. He cites Gartner Group studies showing that firms that manage skills will enjoy a 25% productivity advantage.

Skills-based management (SBM) comes down to a clear and shared understanding of "who can do what how well," he says. It starts with a skills inventory, and may use packaged software in the form of IT "skills dictionaries" to make the inventory as complete as possible. By cataloging and rating individual and collective skills, and factoring in potential upgrades through training, a skills inventory allows IS managers to set up and match detailed "position" and "employee" profiles. SBM is more suited than knowledge mapping ("what do we know" and "who knows it") to single-discipline, task-oriented jobs.

In more open management environments, employees can use such inventories to help direct their own skills growth paths. And thereby hangs a tale: The inventories are only as good as management's implementation of SBM techniques. Vital issues that have to be resolved early include: Who "owns" the SBM process? Who manages it? What signals does its use send to employees? And what guards are there against its improper use?

COPYRIGHT 1998 Wiesner Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group