Over the last several years, a strong movement, backed by many governors and state legislatures, has championed a skills-based approach to hiring and an ongoing effort to reduce college degree requirements that are judged to be unnecessary.

But advancing a policy that appears promising is only one step in achieving positive change. Solid implementation is also needed. In an introduction to its Skills-Based Talent Metrics Toolkit, the National Governors Association and Lightcast, an organization with labor market data expertise, emphasize that sustaining momentum requires more “than policy change alone.”

The in-depth toolkit, which can be downloaded separately, provides detailed beginning steps on creating a measurement system that can assess the reach of the skill-based hiring movement. 

With a step-by-step approach, the toolkit presents a starting framework for answering questions like the following: “Are these changes expanding access to public sector employment? Are agencies attracting different or larger pools of qualified candidates?

Are hiring practices actually changing? And ultimately, are skills-based approaches helping states recruit and retain the talent they need?”

The toolkit recognizes that some of the data needed will be more easily available. For example, an initial foray into skills-based measurement is focused on turnover and retention data, which can help determine the impact of skills-based hiring, as well as skills-based training and development, on employee tenure. 

Another priority metric looks at the number of applicants for a government role and both the offers and hires made to the candidates who don’t have degrees. That helps to show “whether wider access converts into hires.”

While its advice is geared to states and territories, the methods suggested will be useful to cities and counties, too. The toolkit recommends a pilot process, working on initial measures in one agency or division. The reasoning? “A focused pilot can give states and territories an opportunity to test new approaches within existing HR and applicant tracking systems, establish baseline measures and compare outcomes before expanding an initiative statewide. It can also help leaders determine which strategies are producing meaningful results before investing in broader implementation.”

The toolkit recognizes that some of the skill data that’s needed do not yet exist in most places. “The greatest data gap is that skill-level detail is missing from employee profiles, candidate profiles and learning and development pathways,” the toolkit reports.

Its advice is to avoid being hampered by the gaps and to use applicant and human resource information systems to establish baselines. As more is learned, the toolkit moves into discussions of adding skill-level data and creating consistent market-relevant skills architecture. The emphasis is on establishing a “shared skills taxonomy that can be applied consistently across systems and use cases.”

Moving forward, the toolkit envisions a measurement system that can evaluate what approaches work and which may not and whether government services and outcomes are improved under a skills-based hiring system. An important aim is to “move beyond descriptive reporting and toward actual evaluation.”

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