{"id":12250,"date":"2026-08-07T12:46:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T12:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/?p=12250"},"modified":"2026-09-04T11:16:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T11:16:04","slug":"skills-and-competencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/skills-and-competencies\/","title":{"rendered":"Skills and Competencies\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"12250\" class=\"elementor elementor-12250 elementor-12245\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-04d482b e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"04d482b\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-f8dcd10 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"f8dcd10\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" id=\"ti-einai-psychometriko\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Skills are reshaping how organizations hire, develop, and mobilize talent, but what do we mean by \u2018skills\u2019? <\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">How do they differ from competencies, and how can they be measured reliably so you can start building a more agile, skills\u2011based workforce?<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-2d14474 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"2d14474\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2><b>Why skills are suddenly everywhere<\/b><\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Skills have become the currency of the talent marketplace, because they describe what people can actually do today and what they can learn tomorrow. As job titles blur and careers become more fluid, employers need a more precise way to compare people and roles than CVs or job histories alone. The urgency is well documented: in one McKinsey survey, <\/span><b>58% of respondents said closing the skills gap at their company had become a priority<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><b>skills\u2011based approach<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> helps organizations respond to talent shortages, automation, and digital transformation by focusing on capabilities rather than credentials. When you understand skills at scale, it becomes easier to redeploy people, design new roles, and give employees clearer pathways to grow.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-53fa542 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"53fa542\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" id=\"typoi-psychometrikwn\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2><b>What do we actually mean by \u201cskills\u201d?<\/b><\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In everyday language, \u201cskills\u201d often gets used loosely, but in talent decisions it helps to distinguish between behavioral skills and technical or functional skills, which together provide a fuller picture of performance.<\/span><\/p><ul><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Behavioral skills<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (sometimes called \u201csoft skills\u201d) describe how people approach work and interact with others, such as collaborating, adapting to change, or making decisions. These skills are durable and transferable across roles and industries, and they are key differentiators of performance.<\/span><\/li><li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Technical\/functional skills<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (often referred to as \u201chard skills\u201d) cover job\u2011specific knowledge and proficiencies, such as using a particular software platform or operating a specific machine. Some are perishable and need frequent updating, especially where technology changes quickly.<\/span><\/li><\/ul><p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SHL\u2019s Global Skills Taxonomy organizes 96 universally relevant behavioral skills in simple, context\u2011free language, giving HR teams a standard way to describe and compare skills across roles, levels, and geographies.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d0a0cbb elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"d0a0cbb\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2><b>Skills vs. competencies: how are they different?<\/b><\/h2><p><b>Competencies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (also sometimes known as \u2018<\/span><b>capabilities<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019) are sets of behaviors that are instrumental in the delivery of desired results (Bartram et al., 2002). Competencies offer broad descriptions of workplace effectiveness, helping organizations structure hiring, development, and performance management initiatives, for example \u2018<\/span><b>Decision Making<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019, or \u2018<\/span><b>Critical Thinking<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u2019<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, competencies alone lack the granularity needed to pinpoint role-specific success factors. This is where skills play a crucial role. Skills are the behavioral \u201cbuilding blocks\u201d that sit underneath those competencies, spelling out observable actions in much more detail. A single competency can be underpinned by different combinations of skills in different roles.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By mapping your existing competency model to skills, or using a validated framework like SHL\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shl.com\/products\/assessments\/behavioral-assessments\/universal-competency-framework\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Universal Competency Framework<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the clarity and familiarity of competencies is maintained while adding the granularity needed for hiring, development, and mobility decisions.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-38ace6d elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"38ace6d\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2><b>How skills are measured<\/b><\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not all skills data is equal. CV parsing, job history, or self\u2011reported skills on profiles can be quick to capture but are backward\u2011looking, subjective, and often inconsistent. They are also vulnerable to uneven self\u2011awareness, which limits their value for selection or promotion decisions.<\/span><\/p><p><b>Objective<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/assessments\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">assessments<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, by contrast, use psychometrics to measure skills reliably and fairly, reducing response bias, providing a consistent skills \u201clanguage\u201d before and after hire, and generating data that can be used for both selection and development.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you have robust skills data, you can start to apply it across the employee lifecycle, not just at the point of hire. For example, skills profiles can be used to align job descriptions with real role requirements, design more predictive hiring assessments and interviews, and identify high\u2011potential talent for promotion or lateral moves. The same data can power more targeted onboarding and development by highlighting specific behavioral skills to strengthen, and it can support talent mobility by showing which employees have the skills or reskilling potential to move into emerging roles.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-8d6de2d elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"8d6de2d\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h2><b>Where to start as an HR team<\/b><\/h2><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For <\/span><b>HR leaders<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the first step is to align clear definitions of <\/span><b>skills<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>competencies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in your organization and to connect them to existing frameworks and processes or use a validated framework like SHL\u2019s <\/span><b>Universal Competency Framework<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. From there, a few critical roles can be identified to pilot a robust, validated skills assessment to quickly surface insights about strengths, gaps, and internal mobility opportunities to start <\/span><b>embedding skills data<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> across the organization to <\/span><b>drive talent strategy<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-ef31aad elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"ef31aad\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><i>Source:<\/i> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shl.com\/resources\/by-type\/blog\/2026\/hr-101-skills-and-competencies\/?utm_source=linkedin&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=social_soundbite\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>HR 101: Skills and Competencies<\/i><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Skills are reshaping how organizations hire, develop, and mobilize talent, but what do we mean by \u2018skills\u2019? How do they differ from competencies, and how can they be measured reliably so you can start building a more agile, skills\u2011based workforce? Why skills are suddenly everywhere Skills have become the currency of the talent marketplace, because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12251,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-talent-management-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12250"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12270,"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12250\/revisions\/12270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.evalion-shl.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}