{"id":129748,"date":"2025-06-03T08:00:23","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T12:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trainingindustry.com\/?post_type=articles&p=129748"},"modified":"2025-07-09T13:56:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T17:56:01","slug":"skills-taxonomies-driving-targeted-skills-development-for-a-future-ready-workforce","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/trainingindustry.com\/articles\/strategy-alignment-and-planning\/skills-taxonomies-driving-targeted-skills-development-for-a-future-ready-workforce\/","title":{"rendered":"Skills Taxonomies: Driving Targeted Skills Development for a Future-Ready Workforce"},"author":52,"featured_media":129757,"template":"","tags":[29612,3699,1387,35705,34455],"class_list":["post-129748","articles","type-articles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-reskilling-and-upskilling","tag-skills-mapping","tag-talent-development","tag-trending-articles-june-2025","tag-trending-content","global_topic_tax-performance-management","global_topic_tax-strategy-alignment-and-planning"],"acf":{"sponsored":false,"gated":false,"gated_content_type":"","file_attachment":null,"gated_content":"","form_instruction_header":"To access the full article, please fill out the form below:","pardot_html_embed":"","author_override":true,"author_name":"Sarah Gallo, CPTM","author_image":123175,"author_bio":"Sarah Gallo, CPTM, is a senior editor at Training Industry, Inc., and co-host of\u00a0The Business of Learning<\/a>, the Training Industry podcast.","excerpt":"Businesses are focusing on skills development to adapt to disruption. With 50% of workers in ongoing training, skills taxonomies help organizations stay future-ready amid changing skill demands.\r\n\r\n","main_content":"Businesses across industries are increasingly prioritizing skills development as a response to ongoing disruption. While change remains constant, learning and development (L&D) efforts are helping organizations adapt and stay competitive.\r\n\r\nIn fact, The World Economic Forum\u2019s \u201cFuture of Jobs Report 2025<\/a>\u201d found that although employers still expect 39% of workers' core skills will shift by 2030, the pace of disruption is stabilizing \u2014 partly due to a stronger focus on continuous learning and reskilling. 50% of the workforce has now completed training as part of long-term learning strategies, up from 41% in 2023, the research found.\r\n\r\nAs organizations continue to prioritize skills development to stay future ready, let\u2019s consider how skills taxonomies can be part of the solution.\r\n

What Is a Skills Taxonomy?<\/h2>\r\nA skills taxonomy is a useful tool that can help L&D teams create clear role expectations, align learning programs to business needs<\/a> and use consistent language across departments.\r\n\r\nLisa Paulson, manager of L&D at Nesnah Ventures, describes a skills taxonomy as \u201ca hierarchy of skills that are needed for the organization to be able to realize its goals.\u201d\r\n\r\nSkills taxonomies can be broad in scope, outlining the skills required within a specific business function, or more granular, identifying the skills needed for individual job roles.\r\n\r\nNolan Hout, senior vice president of growth at Infopro Learning, defines skills taxonomies as \u201ca classification system of an agreed upon set of skills and definitions of those skills.\u201d\r\n\r\nUltimately, skills taxonomies are about ensuring the right people are in the right roles with the right skills to effectively contribute to the organization's goals and overarching mission, says Ajay Pangarkar, CEO and partner at CentralKnowledge, and co-author of \"Learning Metrics: How to Measure the Impact of Organizational Learning.\"\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s worth noting that although the term \u201cskills taxonomy\u201d may sound like a trendy buzzword, the concept behind it isn\u2019t new, Pangarkar says. Organizations have long been focused on identifying and applying the right skills at the right time to meet business goals. Terms like \u201cskills mapping,\u201d \u201ccompetency modeling<\/a>,\u201d \u201cskills inventory\u201d and \u201cskills matrix\u201d may differ slightly in definition, but they all serve a similar purpose of helping ensure the organization has the right skills in place to stay competitive.\r\n\r\nHere is an example of what a skills taxonomy might look like for a data scientist role:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
Skill Category<\/strong><\/td>\r\nSubcategory<\/strong><\/td>\r\nSpecific Skills<\/strong><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
 \r\n\r\nTechnical Skills<\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Programming and scripting\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Data manipulation and analysis\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Machine learning\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AI and deep learning\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Big data tools\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cloud platforms\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Python, R, SQL, Java\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pandas, NumPy, Excel\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Regression, classification, clustering\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Neural networks, TensorFlow, PyTorch\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hadoop, Spark, Hive\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 AWS, Azure, Google Cloud\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Analytical and Business Skills\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Mathematics and statistics\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Data visualization\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Experimentation\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Domain knowledge\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Problem-solving\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Communication\r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hypothesis testing, linear algebra, calculus\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tableau, Power BI\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A\/B testing\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Industry-specific expertise (e.g., retail, health care, finance, etc.)\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Root cause analysis, business case development\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Data storytelling, stakeholder presentations<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Soft Skills<\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Collaboration\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Critical thinking\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Adaptability<\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cross-functional teamwork, Agile practices\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Decision-making, evaluating data integrity\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Learning new tools, navigating change<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n
Ethics and Compliance Skills\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n <\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Data privacy\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Responsible AI<\/td>\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 GDPR, HIPAA, PII compliance\r\n\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bias mitigation<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n \r\n

Building a Skills Taxonomy: 3 Tips for Success<\/h2>\r\nCreating a skills taxonomy can be challenging given how fast business needs are shifting. Consider these best practices to get started:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  1. Identify current and future skill needs. <\/strong><\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\nStart by identifying your organization\u2019s immediate skill needs (i.e., the skills required now to meet current business goals and deliver value to the customer or end user) and future skill needs (i.e., the skills the organization will need to be competitive one, three or five years from now), Pangarkar says.\r\n\r\nIdentifying future skill needs is especially important for businesses in industries marked by high rates of change. For example, Pangarkar explains, a tech company \u201cmay have the necessary skill set today to satisfy whoever's buying that technology or using that technology.\u201d However, \u201cWe know in a year or three years or five years, that technology is looking very different,\u201d and will require an evolved skill set.\r\n\r\nHere are a few ways to identify your organization\u2019s current and future skill needs:\r\n