People Strategy case study

A Skills Taxonomy Needs a First Job. This One Was Staffing.

11competency centres, each owning its skills
55roles classified on 5 seniority levels
7soft skills for everyone, on 3 proficiency levels
3uses in sequence: staffing, performance, learning

The situation

The question behind the question.

A few weeks earlier, we had scored its HR function against the company it planned to become: 3 times bigger in 5 years. One gap ran through almost everything. The firm sold expertise, yet it had no common way to say who knew what. Staffing ran on what managers remembered, forecasts saw 2 months ahead, and each region rated people its own way. The roadmap called for a skills-based classification of talent. We were brought straight back to lay its foundations.

As it was asked

“Help us build a skills taxonomy.”

As we reframed it

Decide what the skills are for before listing them: which decisions they must serve first, how simple the model has to be for managers to use it, and who will own it once we leave.

How we worked

How the work unfolded.

01

Picture the destination

We started with the vision, not the list. What would a skills-based firm do differently when it attracts, recruits, onboards, grows, staffs and recognises its people? The business directors tested it first: 11 of them gave their view on skill tags against the role and level frameworks already in place. Their answer set the rule for everything after: a position is a competency centre, a role and a seniority level, and skills describe what sits inside it.

02

Choose the first use

Then the order. A classification built for 6 uses at once serves none of them well. Staffing came first, because that is where a consulting firm earns or loses its margin: the right people on client work, and forecasts that see further than 2 months ahead, against a target of 6. Its success was read on 2 measures, utilisation and bench percentage: relevant to the margin, movable by the staffing teams, and already produced by the firm’s own data. Performance came second, as the lever to scale growth, then learning. Each use was set to start only when the one before could run on the same data.

03

Keep it usable

Then the design, built to be used. We started from market references and cut them down. Technical skills came from the firm’s own competency centres: 1 to 3 must-have skills per role, up to 10 secondary ones. Soft skills went the other way: the same few for everyone, with the expected level rising with seniority. A market library of 8 competencies on 5 levels became 7 skills on 3, short enough for a manager to rate without a manual.

04

Test and hand over

Before any launch, the model met real work. A proof of concept on one client account tagged 9 roles against their skills, line by line. Each competency centre got a named lead to own its list. A readiness checklist rated design, change impact and change management, and the steering committee reviewed it. For performance management, we laid out 3 launch dates with their trade-offs and recommended December, in time for the next goal-setting cycle.

The instrument

One position, 3 layers

The centre. Where the expertise lives: 11 competency centres, each with a lead who owns its skills list.

The role and level. 55 roles on 5 seniority levels, so a position reads the same in every region.

The skills. 1 to 3 must-have and up to 10 secondary technical skills per role; 7 soft skills for everyone, on 3 levels.

Staffing reads the skills first, performance reads the levels next, learning reads the gap between them.

What moved

What changed, and what didn't.

10 of 11competency centres with a named lead to own their skills
Evidence Decision taken Adopted in practice Measured impact
What moved

The model went to the firm’s global leadership summit as the foundation of its skills-based organisation: technical skills by competency centre, 7 soft skills for everyone. 10 of 11 centres had a named lead to own their list, and the order of use was set: staffing, then performance, then learning.

What didn't move

The other streams did not move while we were there: the people strategy, careers and leadership stayed on the roadmap. Performance management left us as options and a plan, not a process. The steering committee flagged limited bandwidth beside the day job, and the effect on utilisation and bench was still to come when we handed over.

What we'd say to a peer

A skills taxonomy is not a project; it is a language, and a language spreads through use. Pick the decision it must serve first, for a consulting firm that is usually staffing, and design for the manager who will rate it on a Monday morning. Then name who owns each list before anyone asks what to do with it.

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Method note:

Own approach in 4 steps; business directors’ review; staffing measured by utilisation and bench; 3-layer position model; market references simplified; proof of concept on one client account; readiness checklist.

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