Employee Skill
A skill is what a man can do on the floor, which is not the same as what he has a certificate for. Each record names the skill, the rating he was assessed at, who assessed him and when. It is the list a shift roster is built from when a machine needs somebody who can run it.
What it is for
In a mill the useful question is not what qualifications a man holds, it is which machines he can be put on tonight. A ring frame, a simplex, a winding machine and a forklift are four different skills, and a shift with nobody rated on the simplex is a shift that stops.
Each record is one skill at one rating, with the assessment behind it: who did it, when, and what they observed. The assessment detail matters more than it looks. A rating with nobody's name against it is an opinion, and the first supervisor to disagree with it will ignore it.
A rating is updated by changing the record, which means the screen holds the current picture rather than a history of assessments. If the client wants the history, record the previous rating and date in the assessment detail before you change it.
Every field, in plain words
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employee | Whose skill this is | EMP-0427 Imran Qureshi | Required. Pick him from the list |
| Skill | What he can do | SK-RINGFRAME Ring Frame Operation | Required. Pick it from Skill |
| Skill Rating | How well he can do it | ADV Advanced | Required. Pick it from Skill Rating. The ratings themselves are the client's own scale, commonly four steps from beginner to expert |
Skills Assessment
| Field | What it means | What to put in it | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Assessment Date | When he was assessed | 15-Jan-2026 | |
| Assessment By | Who assessed him | Tariq Mehmood, Shift Supervisor | Name the person. A rating with no assessor behind it carries no weight |
| Assessment Details | What was observed | Observed over two shifts. Handles doffing and piecing unaided, resolved an end break without calling the fitter. |
How to configure it
- Set up the skills the client's work actually needs on Skill, grouped with Skill Group if the list is long. Name them after machines and tasks, not after abstractions.
- Set up the rating scale once on Skill Rating. Four steps is usually right, and everybody must understand the difference between step two and step three or the data is noise.
- Open this screen, create a record and pick the employee.
- Pick the Skill and the Skill Rating he has been assessed at.
- Enter the Assessment Date, the assessor's name and what was observed.
- Save, and repeat for each skill the man has been assessed on.
Scenarios
Night shift needs somebody who can run the simplex
That is a report over this screen: everybody rated at or above a given level on that skill. It works only if the ratings are kept current, which means an assessment routine and not a one off exercise at go live.
A new man says he can run a ring frame
Record the skill at the rating his supervisor actually assessed him at, after watching him, with the date and the observation. What he says on his form belongs in Employee Professional Experience. What his supervisor saw belongs here.
A worker improved after the refresher course
Change the rating on the existing record, with a new assessment date and assessor, and put the previous rating in the assessment detail if the client wants the history. The course itself is recorded on Employee Courses.
We want the appraisal to reflect skills
The skills here are a record, not a score. Where the client wants skill level to count towards an appraisal, that is a competency on the appraisal form, set up in Evaluation Metric and Evaluation Template.
What it is connected to
- Skill, Skill Group and Skill Rating define the skills and the scale.
- Position holds the skills a job needs, which is what these records are compared against.
- Training Need is where a gap between the two becomes a training plan.
- Employee Basic Information shows the same records on its skills tab.
- Shift Roster is where the answer is used, when somebody has to be put on a machine.
If something looks wrong
- "The ratings do not mean anything" - the scale was set up without the client agreeing what each step looks like. Fix the scale definition before collecting more data.
- "Nobody shows as skilled on a machine everybody runs" - no assessments have been recorded for that skill. The screen holds nothing it is not told.
- "A rating changed and we lost the old one" - the record holds the current rating only. Put the previous rating in the assessment detail before changing it.