Skills inventories: A skills invent

Skills inventories: A skills inventory describes the skills and knowledge of employees and is mainly used for making placement and promotion decisions. This information should be stored in the company’s HRIS, where it can be easily retrieved and frequently updated. Each a organization should identify the critical skills that are needed to make it effective and compile an inventory of which employees have which skills. This inventory should include everything that might be useful and job-related. For example, musical talents may be valuable to a nursing home and a list should be made of which employees sing, lead music, or play musical instruments. The trend toward international business has made language skills increasingly valuable. Many hospitals, for example, maintain a current inventory of which employees speak which languages so they can assist as needed in translating for patients or visitors.Skill inventories can also be used to foster growth and prevent employee stagnation. The process used to create the inventory can itself be developmental for the job incumbents and their supervisors since it involves summarizing the employees past development, assessing the strength of their skills, and discussing the employees aspirations and training needs. The motivation to sharpen present skills or learn new ones is strengthened.