Skills Taxonomy: The Essential Skills Map for Managing Your Team’s Talent 

Do you know the skills your team possesses? And which ones they need to truly drive your company’s growth? Today more than ever, discussing talent is about discussing skills: from the most technical to the so-called Power Skills, those key competencies that make a difference when it comes to communicating, adapting, and solving problems. 

The reality is clear: more companies are betting on a skills-based approach because they cannot afford to make decisions blindly. According to the World Economic Forum, the talent shortage is one of the biggest global challenges. The lack of people with the right competencies hinders growth, limits innovation, and leaves profiles with great potential out of the market. And as long as we continue to rely solely on degrees or previous experience as indicators, the problem will only grow. 

This is where a key concept comes into play: skills taxonomy. More than just a list, it’s an organized structure for identifying, classifying, and managing the skills of your team. In an environment that changes at a frenetic pace, having this “skills taxonomy” can make the difference between adapting or being left behind. 

That’s why, in this guide, we explain what a skills taxonomy is, why it’s so important, and how you can build it step by step to boost talent development in your organization. 

What is a Skills Taxonomy? 

A skills taxonomy is essentially an organized map of the skills that exist within your company. It’s a structured way of classifying and categorizing your employees’ skills, grouping them by areas, levels, and relevance. 

It may sound technical, but it’s actually very practical. Imagine you have a category called digital skills. Within it, you could have subcategories such as: office tools, data analysis, process automation, and collaborative platform management. At the same time, each skill can have proficiency levels (basic, intermediate, advanced) and be assigned to specific roles within the organization. Simple, right? That classification process is a skills taxonomy. 

How is a Skills Taxonomy Different from a Skills Framework and Skills Mapping? 

Although these terms are often used interchangeably, they serve different functions within talent management: 

• Skills Taxonomy: A hierarchical classification of skills that groups and organizes competencies into categories and subcategories, providing a clear and structured view of the available and needed talent in the organization. 

• Skills Framework: A model that defines which skills are key to performing specific roles within a company, usually aligned with the proficiency levels expected of an employee and professional development pathways. 

• Skills Mapping: The practice of analyzing and recording the skills currently possessed by employees, with the aim of comparing that inventory with the business needs and identifying potential gaps. 

Why Does Your Company Need a Skills Taxonomy? 

Having a skills taxonomy is not just a matter of organization: it’s the foundation for making smarter, more agile, and fairer talent decisions. Here’s why you should start building yours as soon as possible: 

1. Clear Visibility of Talent 

A taxonomy gives you an updated and accurate picture of your team’s real capabilities, beyond just resumes. This allows you to respond quickly to changes, reorganizations, or new priorities. 

2. Identification of Key Gaps 

Knowing what you have and what you lack is crucial for growth. A good skills structure allows you to detect critical gaps before they become bottlenecks for the business. 

3. Impactful Training 

Avoid training for the sake of training. When you know which skills you need to develop, you can design upskilling and reskilling plans with a clear purpose aligned with organizational goals. 

4. Fairer and More Efficient Talent Allocation 

Move beyond intuition-based decisions. A skills taxonomy allows you to align people with roles and projects based on what they can truly contribute. 

5. Data-Driven Talent Management 

Talent changes, evolves, and transforms. Companies that manage it as a living, measurable asset have a clear competitive advantage over those still making decisions blindly.  

WHITEPAPER

Discover the power skills that will transform your company in 2025

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How is a Skills Taxonomy Applied in HR and Business Strategy? 

You know why it’s crucial to have a skills taxonomy, but… how does it translate into concrete actions? Here are some examples of how it can make a difference in different areas of your company: 

• Recruitment and Talent Acquisition: Say goodbye to filters by university degree or years of experience. With a skills taxonomy, you can define the skills each role truly needs and broaden your search to diverse profiles, focusing on what really matters: what they can do. 

• Training, Development, and Continuous Learning: If you know which skills you lack, you can design clear, personalized, and impactful learning paths. This way, you leave behind generic courses and start training with a real purpose. 

• Performance Evaluation and Professional Growth: A taxonomy also helps you provide more concrete and useful feedback. Managers and teams can align expectations, identify improvement opportunities, and set goals based on real skills, not just past results. 

• Workforce Planning: Knowing what capabilities you have today gives you the flexibility to move quickly tomorrow. Reorganizing teams, launching new projects, or adapting to market changes is much easier if you have the talent map in front of you. 

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Betting on skills also opens doors. By valuing what a person can contribute beyond their background, you give visibility to talents that often remain off the radar… and that transforms cultures. 

How to Build a Skills Taxonomy Step by Step 

Okay, everything sounds great… but where to start? You don’t need an army of consultants or to complicate your life with technical terminology. Here’s a practical guide to building your skills taxonomy from scratch (and making it really work): 

1. Define the Objective and Scope 

What will you use the taxonomy for? Do you want to map the talent of the entire company, or start with a key area like IT, sales, or customer service? Defining the scope prevents the project from becoming unmanageable and helps you focus on priorities. 

2. Group Skills into Major Blocks 

Keep it simple: don’t start with an endless list. Divide by types of skills such as: 

• Technical skills (e.g., programming, graphic design, accounting) 

• Soft skills (e.g., leadership, communication, empathy) 

• Digital skills (e.g., tool management, automation) 

• Specific industry or business knowledge (e.g., legal regulations, internal processes) 

3. Define Subcategories and Proficiency Levels 

It’s not enough to know “who has what.” You need to know how well they do it. Example: 

• Skill: Data Analysis 

• Level 1: Interprets basic charts. 

• Level 2: Uses Excel and BI tools. 

• Level 3: Builds predictive models. This allows you to be objective and identify real gaps more clearly. 

4. Associate Skills to Each Role or Position 

Each profile within the organization should have an expected set of skills (and levels). This helps in planning training, identifying internal talent, or conducting more strategic recruitment. A sales profile doesn’t need the same as a marketing or IT one. 

5. Make It Evolutionary (and Collaborate with Your Teams) 

The market changes, roles evolve, and tools do too. Therefore, involve managers and teams to review and update the taxonomy periodically. The more current and collaborative it is, the more useful it will be for everyone. 

6. Connect the Taxonomy to Your Talent Tools 

Don’t let all this remain just a nice document. Integrate your taxonomy into your LMS, performance management system, or any HR tool. This way, everything learned is transformed into action: learning paths, evaluations, internal mobility… 

CASE STUDY

How Telefónica trained its employees in new skills with a large-scale reskilling plan

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And if you could take it a step further and activate all the potential of your skills taxonomy from a single platform? 

With isEazy LMS, you transform your skills taxonomy into a tool that allows you to offer a complete and actionable training experience. Design personalized learning paths, assign content by competency levels, track real progress, and measure impact at every stage. 

Our tool combines the power of a Learning Management System with the experience of a Learning Experience Platform to offer a comprehensive, visual, agile, and user-focused solution. Discover how isEazy LMS helps you turn your skills taxonomy into real results. Strategic, agile training 100% aligned with the talent you want to build. Request a demo. 

CONTENT CREATED BY:

Paula Cury Monteiro

Content Marketing Specialist at isEazy