Workforce Intelligence turns skillSYMS from a record of what people have been taught into a record of what they can currently do. Once it is populated it answers, for any employee:
Their role requires 24 competencies. They currently meet 20. Three have improved since February, one critical competency remains below standard, and six of those conclusions are supported by fresh workplace evidence.
This guide gets you from an empty module to a workforce register with a competency framework behind it.
Where to find it
Open the Workforce tab in the top navigation. Underneath it you will find:
- Workforce Intelligence — the overview, with a setup checklist.
- Employers — the organisations whose workforce you manage.
- Skills Genome — competency frameworks, domains, competencies and behaviour anchors.
- Job Architecture — roles, grades and the level each role requires.
- Workforce Register — every person, their role, manager and skills passport.
- Imports — bring an existing framework, headcount file or role list.
- Workforce Reports — genome, role matrix, register, gap analysis and coverage.
Step 1 — Create the employer
Everything hangs off an employer. Go to Employers → New employer.
If your organisation is running Workforce Intelligence on its own skillSYMS tenant, tick This tenant is the employer. That hides the employer picker everywhere else, because there is only ever one.
If you are a training provider managing several client employers, leave it unticked and create one row per client.
Data sharing
Each employer has a data sharing setting, and it matters:
| Mode | What a hosting provider can see |
|---|---|
| Private | Only users explicitly scoped to that employer see anything. |
| Aggregate only | Counts and averages, but never per-person competency detail. |
| Full | Everything, including per-person scores. |
This is enforced in the API, not just hidden in the interface. A provider viewing an aggregate only employer will get a clear refusal on any per-person passport, not a blank screen.
Creating an employer also sets up the standard 5-level proficiency scale automatically, so you can start building the Skills Genome straight away.
Step 2 — Build the Skills Genome
Go to Skills Genome. You will see the five levels every competency is measured on:
| Level | Name | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Awareness | Understands the fundamentals but requires close guidance. |
| 2 | Developing | Performs routine tasks with support. |
| 3 | Proficient | Independently performs to the required workplace standard. |
| 4 | Advanced | Handles complexity, coaches others and improves practice. |
| 5 | Expert | Recognised authority; designs standards and builds organisational capability. |
Level 3 is the workplace standard — the one most role requirements are set against. Setting a requirement at 4 means “we need this person to be able to coach others and improve the practice”, not just do the job.
Create a framework, add domains and competencies to it, and then activate it. A framework with no competencies cannot be activated: it would produce an empty genome and silently return zero gaps for every role built on it.
See Building your Skills Genome for the detail on domains, behaviour anchors and mapping.
Step 3 — Define the job architecture
Go to Job Architecture and create your roles. For each one, press Set requirements and tick the competencies the role needs, with the level required.
This step is the one people skip, and it is the one that matters most. Without a required level there is no gap, no readiness percentage, and no heatmap — the register is just a staff list.
Mark a role as critical when the organisation would be materially exposed without it. Critical roles escalate gap priority and will feed the capability risk index in a later phase.
Step 4 — Load the workforce
Go to Workforce Register. You can add people one at a time, or bring in a headcount file from Imports.
A person in Workforce Intelligence can be one of three things, and the module treats them all the same:
- linked to an HR staff record,
- linked to a learner record,
- or standalone — an employee imported from a customer file with no other record in the platform.
An employee enrolled on a learnership can be linked to both at once. That is deliberate: it is exactly the case the training-to-competency story depends on.
A note on identity numbers
Workforce Intelligence never stores a full identity number. If you need one on file, link the person to their HR or learner record, where it stays encrypted. The import will reject a full identity number rather than silently truncating it.
Step 5 — Assign people to roles and managers
Assign each person their role, and set their manager. The reporting line is what makes My Team work for supervisors, and what scopes who can see whom.
The overview page carries a setup checklist that tracks all of this. Competency gaps can only be calculated once every step is done.
What the numbers mean
Two conventions run through the whole module, and it is worth understanding them before the first assessment cycle:
An em dash is not a zero. When you see — instead of a score, it means that competency has not yet been established to a reportable confidence. That is not the same as the person being below standard, and the module will never report it as one — in the interface, in a CSV, or in a PDF board pack.
Every score carries its confidence. A conclusion drawn from one unevidenced supervisor opinion is not the same as one drawn from a formal assessment, workplace evidence and an observation that agree with each other. The module tracks the difference and shows it.
What comes next
Phase 1 gives you the architecture. The phases that follow add:
- Assess — baseline self-assessment, behaviourally-anchored supervisor ratings, evidence linkage, gaps and readiness.
- Develop — individual development plans, a coaching journal, and supervisor check-ins.
Building the genome and the register properly now is what makes those phases produce meaningful numbers rather than plausible-looking ones.