The Vocabulary of Skills
Reference entries for the terms every skills program runs on. Each one gives you the definition, the facts you look up, one table that matters, and the long-form guide when you want the argument.
About these entries. Written by the SkillsDB team from how the platform has modeled skills, competencies, roles, and assessments for Fortune 500 and mid-market teams since 2008. Each entry is reviewed against the product and the help center, dated, and updated when the model changes.
Skills
Skills Inventory
A skills inventory is the dated, per-person record of which skills each employee holds, at what proficiency level, on what evidence.
Skills Taxonomy
A skills taxonomy is the controlled, organized vocabulary of skills an organization uses to describe work, grouped so that every role, assessment, and report draws from the same named list rather than from free text.
What Is a Skill?
A skill is a specific, observable ability to perform a task to a defined standard, expressed with a proficiency level so it can be compared across people and over time.
Competencies
What Is a Competency?
A competency is a named, leveled cluster of abilities, knowledge, and behavior a role needs to deliver a specific work outcome, written so an assessor can judge how well someone performs it.
Competency Framework
A competency framework is the shared structure, spanning every job family, that names the competencies each one requires, levels them on a shared proficiency scale, and states the required level for every role, so that assessment, gap analysis, and development all read from one definition of good.
Skills vs. Competencies vs. Proficiency
Skills, competencies, and proficiency are three different kinds of record: a skill is a unit of ability, a competency is an outcome-shaped bundle of them, and proficiency is the measurement applied to either.
Roles
Career Pathway
A career pathway is a defined sequence of roles or levels, each with the skills, proficiency levels, and evidence a person must demonstrate to move to the next, so that progression is visible and testable rather than left to tenure or a manager's discretion.
Job Roles and Job Architecture
A job architecture is the structured hierarchy of job families, levels, and roles that attaches to every role the skills it demands and the proficiency level expected for each.
Promotion Workflow
A promotion workflow is the defined sequence an organization follows from evidence that a person meets the next level's requirements, through the approvals that confirm it, to the recorded change of role or level.
Matrices
Skills Matrix vs. Training Matrix
A skills matrix records how well each person performs each skill as an assessed proficiency level; a training matrix records whether and when each person completed the training a skill requires, and whether that training is still current.
Skills Matrix
A skills matrix places people on one axis and skills on the other, recording, at each intersection, the proficiency level the person has demonstrated, so that a manager can see coverage, gaps, and depth for a team at a glance.
Training Matrix
A training matrix maps each person to the training their role requires and records, per requirement, whether it has been completed, the date it was completed, and when it expires, so that coverage and currency can be read for a team, a site, or an audit.
Gaps
Employee Development Plan
A development plan is a dated commitment that names one or more assessed proficiency gaps, states the target level for each, assigns the learning and experience that will close them, and defines the evidence that will show the new level has been reached.
Skills Gap Analysis
A skills gap analysis compares the proficiency level a role requires for each skill against the level a person has demonstrated, and reports the difference so that development, hiring, and staffing decisions rest on a measured shortfall rather than an impression.
Assessments
Skills Assessment
A skills assessment is a recorded judgment of a person's proficiency level on a specific skill, made by a stated method on a stated date so the result can be compared and defended.
Skills Survey
A skills survey is a question-based instrument that asks people to report on their skills, interests, certifications, or experience, producing structured self-reported data that seeds an inventory or captures context an assessment cannot.
Training
Certification Tracking
Certification tracking is the practice of recording, for every person and every credential their role requires, the issue date, the expiry date, the evidence behind it, and who approved it, so that an organization can show at any moment who is qualified, who is lapsing, and who never was.
Learning Plan
A learning plan is the set of learning resources assigned to or chosen by one person, each linked to a skill and tracked through to completion, that carries out the commitments made in their development plan.
Upskilling and Reskilling
Upskilling raises a person's proficiency in a skill their current role already requires; reskilling builds proficiency in a skill for a role they do not yet hold, and both are complete only when a reassessment records the new level.
Talent
Succession Planning
Succession planning is the practice of identifying the roles an organization cannot leave vacant and preparing, in advance, the people who could fill them, measured by how closely each candidate's assessed skills match what the role requires.
Workforce Planning
Workforce planning is the discipline of comparing the capability an organization has against the capability its strategy will require, by role, location, and time, and deciding how to close the difference by building, buying, borrowing, or redeploying.
Platforms
Competency Management Software
Competency management software is a system that defines the competencies each role requires, records assessed proficiency against them with evidence, and produces the gap, training, and audit records that prove people are competent for the work they do.
Skills-Based Organization
A skills-based organization is one that uses skills, assessed and kept current, as the unit for deciding who does what work, who is hired, who is developed, and who moves, instead of relying on job titles, tenure, and the org chart.
Skills Intelligence Platform
A skills intelligence platform is the software that serves as the system of record for skills: it defines an organization's skills, verifies who holds them at what level, computes the gaps against roles, and connects those gaps to planning and learning.