Capabilities, competencies, skills – big buzzy words

Skills, competencies, capabilities, what do these buzzy words mean? Marc Ramos, Chief Learning Officer at Cornerstone, describes how he sees and uses them.

Marc defines capabilities as the ability to do something ideally at a high standard, whether it’s a competence or a skill.

Skills and competencies are often linked to technology solutions where some talk about skills, others about competencies. Marc believes these naming issues will go away with time.

What defines a skill from a technical perspective is that it can be tagged and followed throughout someone’s career. This makes it possible to:

• Break down content and provide the exact right learning content to someone who wants to upskill or reskill.

• Makes it possible to identify skills that the individual already has and adapt the learning content accordingly.

• Offer other types of learning than online courses, such as a mentor or spending time with an expert.

• Provide talent marketplaces where short-term gigs and projects can be offered.

• Employees can, in a truly granular way, get information about exactly what skills they need to develop to be able to skill up or change direction.

• Give organisations better visibility of Return on Investment in learning and growth.

Read more about how AI is further enhancing skills matching and ontology here: https://www.cornerstoneondemand.com/uk/resources/article/unlocking-the-future-ai-enhanced-skills-matching-and-ontology/