Skills Portal

Now, more than ever before the importance of realising the potential of the UK workforce is the key to future prosperity, and a fair and enfranchised society. This is applicable to those in work, particularly in public services, where demographic pressures on both those providing and demanding services mean that decisive action is required now, and for those NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), or in low skilled work, who fail to make the contribution they could to their own lives, or to the economy at large. In other areas of the employment market, which the Leitch Review recommends for the UK to proactively move to a higher value knowledge-based economy, the same principles apply; how to harness and nurture the huge potential of the UK workforce and guide it to a competitive and productive future?

In addition to the Leitch Review, and the government's response, World Class Skills, we have seen in 2008 the government put 'Unlocking Talent' and skills development at the heart of their spending plans, epitomised by the growing Train to Gain fund to support those in work, and the proposal of compulsory training for job seekers.

The Skills Portal provides a means to assess and monitor the skills and performance of the workforce, ensuring effective:

• Workforce Planning
• Learning and Development
• Deployment
• Performance Management and Appraisal
• Organisational Development

Gathering robust, up to the minute data on your employees skills and capacity is a difficult process to manage; across departments or organisational boundaries it's even harder. Within most organisations people are moved around based on perceived need or convenience rather than best-fit, which means some of the best talent goes unrecognised and remains dormant, or leaves to be nurtured elsewhere. In a partnership working environment the risk of this happening is even higher.

For public sector organisations, the inspectorate regime has finally caught up with what HR and OD professionals have been seeking to achieve for some time. The Local Government Workforce Strategy 2007 states clearly that future of Local Government and communities they serve is entirely dependent on councils 'raising their game' and becoming great at managing talent. The Audit Commission's developed focus on workforce and skills can also be seen in the report, Tomorrow's people: Building a local government workforce for the future, and the CAA Key Line of Enquiry 3.3 is a clear indication that they will only grant a high CAA rating when satisfied an organisation:

• has a productive and skilled workforce;
• knows in the medium to longer term what staff it will need, with what skills, and has plans to achieve this;
• engages and supports staff in organisational change; and
• has policies which support diversity and good people management.

By implementing a skills-centric approach to talent management employers can effectively manage and co-ordinate a set of seemingly diverse initiatives, ensuring consistency, efficiency and interoperability with other partners and government policy. Such initiatives include:

• Implementing the Skills Pledge
• Service transformation and partnership working (including Local Government Re-organisation)
• Attracting, engaging and retaining a diverse workforce
• Managing the ageing workforce, by engaging young people and introducing flexible working
• Ensuring compliance with standards of competency in regulated and critical services (e.g. Children's and Young People's Services)

Our approach to skills management is very straightforward, and has been proven to be accessible to all sections of the workforce, and even school children. The solution facilitates employers and individuals to develop new skills, open up new career routes, manage performance and significantly raise the contribution made by staff to their businesses.

The process is about harnessing information and making it work for you. The three entities at the heart of this are:

The Skills Portal helps you put peoples' skills at the heart of the organisation.

• Secure web-based ASP solution - quick to deploy and no up front IT investment necessary
• Capable of deploying multiple skills/competency frameworks
• Accommodates skills auditing and appraisal processes through employee self assessment and manager confirmation
• Understand your internal talent pool - identifying job roles, skills, knowledge, behaviours, training, qualifications, employment status, salary, age, ethnicity etc.
• Personal Development Programmes - allowing managers to set skills objectives and create individual performance targets
• Training needs and training budget analysis, programme development and development method evaluation
• Training and e-learning delivery - interoperability with third party providers
• Organisational capability reporting - for effective deployment, succession planning, mentoring and secondments
• Career Pathways - mapping employee development routes through the organisation
• Performance Management - maintain individual performance plans and see them contribute to the organisation's own corporate objectives.

The advantages of having a cohesive, skilled workforce are numerous; here are a few that implementing the skills portal can provide.

There are 5 other case studies available for jobsgopublic, they have been collected together with all the case studies in the 'our customers' section of the site but you can link directly to them here:

1. Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council case study
2. Leicestershire and Rutland Improvement Partnership case study
3. Notting Hill Housing case study
4. Walsall Council case study
5. Bracknell Forest Borough Council case study