How to set up custom/company specific skills for your organisation

In the custom skills category, an organisation can add all the skills it needs to meet its business objectives and goals. From this list, employees choose the skills they bring to the table.

There are no limits on the number of skills you can add here (as is the case in other categories too). MuchSkills customers map everything from animal nutrition and environmental expertise to SAP implementation and SalesForce development. The key is to map the skills that the organisation needs to be successful.

Tip 1: Creating a skills taxonomy first might help‍

Setting up custom or company specific skills in MuchSkills will be way easier if you have already developed a skills taxonomy for the organisation. Quite simply, a skills taxonomy is a detailed list of all the unique skills and competencies that your organisation needs to meet its business goals. Once you have this, setting up custom skills will be easy because you already have the important skills and descriptions down in a list.

If you don't have a skills taxonomy or would like to update your existing one, do read MuchSkills’ playbook on how to create a skills taxonomy by clicking here.

Click here to download an example of a skills taxonomy that we have created. You can edit or modify this taxonomy and upload it to MuchSkills.

Click here to download an example skill list per role/competence. Use the role document to define what skills you need for each role. Once you have defined skills for all roles and competencies, use the skill taxonomy document to define what skills you would like to map in your organisation.

Tip 2: The best way to map development languages and software competence? Leave it to us!

MuchSkills has a built-in data base of all types of software and development languages. To see where users can add these technical skills click here. Don't add software and development languages to your skills taxonomy since this is already managed in the ‘technical skills’ category and adding them elsewhere may confuse users.

How to create a new skills category

Click on ‘TEAM/ORG’ in the top menu and then click on the ‘SETTINGS’ tab in the drop down menu. Click on ‘MANAGE SKILLS’ and then on the green ‘CREATE SKILL CATEGORY’ tab. Give this skill set a name and choose if you want it displayed as a bubble chart or sector chart (for tips on what display to choose, read on). Click on ‘SAVE AND CONTINUE’.

Import/upload skills

‍Import skills and descriptions from a CSV file. After creating a skills category, click on the three dots on the top right corner of the category. You can download a CSV template here and add your own skills + descriptions. Once you are done, use the ‘UPLOAD CSV FILE’ function to upload all your skills.

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Bubble chart - Measure interest level

Pick the bubble chart display if the skills you want to map are not easy to compare or measure. When you pick this display, once employees add skills, they can tap on the bubbles to increase or decrease their size to indicate their interest in using this skill.

Sector chart - Measure skill level

Pick the sector chart if the skills you want mapped can be compared with others. When you use this display, employees add their skills and can rate themselves as ‘Beginner’, ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Expert’ in those skills. Employees will also be able to compare their skill levels with those of their colleagues.

Add skills and descriptions

Once you have created your skill category, you can add skills and a description for each skill. The name of the skill and description will be displayed when users pick skills from your custom skill category under the section ‘MY SKILLS’.

Department(s)

Some skills are specific to a certain department. When you choose ‘ALL' it means the skill will be available to all users. If you select a specific department, it means only users from that department will be prompted to pick this skill.

Mandatory

When you make a skill mandatory for a particular department, the skill will be deployed to all users in that department. Users will have to indicate their skill/interest level with regard to that skill on their profiles. This feature is valuable if you want to measure the proficiency of a particular skill among members of a specific department.

Select the mandatory skills and the departments those skills are mandatory for. Once done, click ‘DEPLOY MANDATORY SKILLS' to activate and push out the skill to all users.

Watch the quick set-up video

We recommend that you watch this video to learn more about custom skills.

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How to modify a skills taxonomy on MuchSkills

MuchSkills features a pre-installed taxonomy that administrators can modify or fine-tune to align with your organization's specific requirements.

To add or modify a skills taxonomy, log in to your MuchSkills account. Go to ‘TEAM/ORG’ in the black menu bar and navigate to ‘SETTINGS’ in the drop-down menu. In the page that opens, click on ‘MANAGE SKILLS’ in the menu bar on the left. You’ll now see different skill categories listed on the right. These categories, such as ‘Essential human skills’ and ‘Functional Skills’, organize the skills taxonomy into manageable sections.

1. Modify a category: To modify any of these existing categories – perhaps to rename them or edit their descriptions – click on the category you wish to modify and make the necessary changes.‍
2. Create new categories: If you want to create new skill categories, click on the green ‘CREATE SKILL CATEGORY’ button on the top right. Fill in the form that opens, providing the name and description of the new category and choosing the type of visualization chart you want, such as the sector chart.‍
3. Add skills: Within each category, you can add individual skills. Click on the category where you want to add skills, then look for an option to add skills. Enter the name of the skill and any relevant details. You can also look for ‘templates’ that you can use. For instance, if your new category is ‘Industry experience’, click on ‘ADD TEMPLATE’ on the top right of the new category box and type ‘Industry experience’. If that template exists, it will pop up and you can add to it if you want to.‍
4. Upload skills to a skills category manually: To manually add skills to this category, type the name of the skill at the bottom left of the skill category box. If the skill is in our database, it will pop up in a drop-down menu. You can then add it, give it a descriptor, and press ‘enter’ to save.‍
5. Upload skills to a skills category in bulk: Instead of manually adding skills to this new category, you can also upload skills in bulk using a CSV file. Prepare the CSV file with the list of skills you want to add. Click on the three-dot menu on the top right of the skill category box and upload the file. It will reflect in the category in seconds.‍
6. Delete skills from skills category: Select any skill you want to delete and press ‘DELETE’ on the top right.‍
7. Rearrange or reorder skills categories: To move any skills categories to a new position in the list, just grab it with your cursor and move it to the place you want it to be.