Community™ Skills
Measure Skills and Knowledge
With Community™ Skills, organizations finally have an explicit way to measure knowledge and experience, providing a solid foundation to establish equity in the workforce.
Community™ Skills is about measuring the stages of skill and knowledge growth. Using the Birches Group Community™ job levels, we have developed explicit measures for each job evaluation indicator, arrayed over five separate skill levels.
The Community™ Skills framework defines the five stages of progression from Basic to Master aligned to the same three factors and levels used in the Community™ Jobs standard. For each job evaluation factor, two indicators have been identified, resulting in a total of thirty milestones of Skills through which staff progress within their grade, and can serve as milestones for the progression to the next higher grade.
The Community™ Skills assessment tool can be used for multiple purposes, including ensuring unbiased application of starting salaries, managing pay, learning and development planning, succession planning, and promotion readiness to name a few.
Track Employee’s
Learning and Growth
Through the articulation of the five Community™ Skills stages and six indicators for each stage, managers can now measure the skill levels of their staff and identify indicators where further development is needed. Over time, it is possible to observe Skills growth and align it with pay adjustments and determine readiness for the next grade or assignment.
Establish Fair
and Equitable Hiring Practices
Community™ Skills makes it possible for organizations to target the right candidate they need by allowing them to define the appropriate skill level required for a role. And because assessments are purely based on the candidate’s skill level, setting starting salaries during the recruitment process is simpler, more objective, and easily justifiable to management.
Manage Pay Movement Clearly and Objectively
With the five stages of knowledge mapped across the different points in the salary range, Community™ Skills makes it possible for organizations to fully utilize their salary ranges and manage pay clearly and objectively. As staff build skills, they move across the stages driving movement in pay within their salary grade, and personal biases such as gender, race, etc. will have no impact on the increase that an employee receives.
