Expert offers practical guidance to gain visibility on the workforce's skills
HR leaders should treat skills as a "living system" in order to address the visibility gap that is holding back organisations from leveraging the skills of their workforce.
This means tracking and using skills more frequently as they evolve, and as the pace of change at work accelerates, according to Dimitris Tsingos, CEO at Epignosis, the parent company of TalentLMS.
"The organisations that move faster are the ones that treat skills as a living system. Something you track, evolve, and use every day—not once a year, and not only under pressure," Tsingos told HRD.
Poor skills visibility
Tsingos offered the advice as new research from TalentLMS revealed that organisations have poor visibility of their employees' skills.
As a result, they're missing out on the hidden skills of their workforce because they can't see them properly.
"That gap is where the problem begins," Tsingos said. "When you're operating with that kind of blind spot, adding complexity only makes things worse."
According to Tsingos, the gap comes as most skills data is "fragmented" in organisations.
"A bit in performance reviews, a bit in managers' perception, a bit in disconnected systems," he said. "Only 18% of companies have a centralised way to track skills. That means most decisions are still based on incomplete information."
Addressing the skills visibility gap
To address the problem, organisations should find a way to make skills visible and usable.
"The first step is clarity: Build a shared, structured view of the skills across the organisation. A centralised system makes skills visible across teams and creates a shared source of truth for managers, HR, and employees," Tsingos said.
The second step is to connect the identified skills to outcomes that actually matter so they turn into action.
"Finally, stop treating skills as something you fix when things go wrong. By the time a performance issue shows up, you're already behind," Tsingos said.
"Because the reality is simple. The pace of change is not slowing down. Skills are shifting faster than ever, as AI continues to reshape how work gets done. And in that environment, guessing is not a strategy."
Benefits of skills visibility
Having a clear vision of employees' skills will allow organisations to deploy talent effectively, according to Tsingos.
"Work starts going to the right people. Decisions become faster," he said.
"When you remove that blind spot, performance improves almost by default. You correct the alignment. You match capability to work. And suddenly, the same team starts delivering very different results."
The second gain is efficiency, where organisations shift their strategy to redistribution and redeployment of talent instead of hiring by default when in need of talent.
"But the most important gain is on the human side," Tsingos said.
Citing the TalentLMS report, Tsingos pointed out that employees feel their career growth is held back when their skills go unnoticed.
"That's not a small signal. That's a systemic failure. When people don't feel seen, they disengage. When they disengage, performance follows," he said.
"So yes, better skills visibility improves performance. But more importantly, it restores something deeper: trust. It tells people, 'We see you. We know what you can do. And we're going to use it.'"
