Your Questions, Answered

Take comfort that ability6® has gone to extensive lengths to ensure your data remains secure.  We’ve implemented specific security measures at the following high-levels:

Infrastructure Security – see this page

User controlled Security – see this page

GDPR Compliance – see this page

If you have any specific security questions please email or call UK: 0330 043 8943 US: (917) 970-0755

We have servers in two locations.  You can choose which location to use and your data will not be stored outside your specified location.

Learn more at our dedicated security page, GDPR compliance page as well as our default engagement terms.

• Yes, ability6® has a skills / talent search feature that enables you to search all employees within the organisation. If an employee moved to a different team/department and isn’t using the skills in their current role, the system maintains a ‘hidden view’ of the current unused skills at an employee level.

Check out this page which we’ve set up specifically to explain the talent search facility.

• Yes, you treat certifications like skills. You decide if the certification is for a ‘task skill’ or a ‘process skill’. Achieving the certification will result in changing the employee rating to ‘3’. The certification can be stored in the document store against the employee task or process skill.

• No, when you set up the teams in ability6® you decide who can access ability6® and also who can make changes within the teams.

Within your account you can specify the following user rights and security parameters.

manage user security parameters within ability6 the worlds most advanced skills matrix

• You improve at the task level. Level 3 is the level that is regarded as ‘capable’
• So you identify the tasks that the team member is <3 then prioritise which of them you train and coach the team member to reach level 3 rating.
• You should tag each process or task with a volume.  Doing so will allow you to sort the matrix by volume, therefore enabling you where to identify areas of skills growth potential for the most frequent tasks/processes.   This will help you to ensure training is provided against the highest volume tasks.

• As a start we recommend using the 1 to 4 rating score for each task. Briefly;
  • 1 means the team member has less than 75% training in the task
  • 2 means that the team member has >75% training but has not proven their ability to perform the task without some guidance.
  • 3 means that the team member can perform the task with no guidance needed
    • We recommend that they should ‘pass’ an objective internal test to prove operational capability.
  • 4 means that the team member has significant experience and can be involved in raining others.
• Level 3 is the level that is regarded as ‘capable’

• You always rank the team member at the task view. This is the level that you train team members in each of the tasks, so it is the best place to evaluate their capability on the 1 to 4 rating score.  Understand the default definition of skills here.

• A skill is an ability to perform a specific task or activity to a high level of proficiency.
• Within ability6® we manage at task and process level. Therefore, we have to decide if the skill is going to be treated as a type of process or a type of task.
• If the skill is a narrow technical skill, for example Excel spreadsheet skills, this should be defined as a task.
  • The collection of tasks would then be grouped under a process, such as month end reports. (of which Excel proficiency would be identified as a required skill/task)
• If the skill is a broader skill, for example Project Management, this should be defined as a process.
  • The process (Project Management) would be broken down into its component tasks, such as; PRINCE2 Foundation skill, Completed xyz Project management methodology etc .

• A task is a small piece of work that needs to be completed.  It will have a start point and usually consist of a number of steps that need to be completed in order to finalise the task at the end point.
• A task is usually performed under standardized conditions. Within ability6® the task is the smallest unit of work that you train your team member to do. You will rate your team member on their ability and experience in completing the task on the 1-4 rating score.  View our standard definition of skills rating here.

We also recommend that you view this page which provides a visual explanation of the task and process skills matrix

• A process is a series of tasks that are completed to achieve an ‘end result’. This ‘end result’ is usually a natural collection of tasks that a team member has to complete before they move the work on to another team member or team.
• We recommend that you consider how you schedule your employees when defining your processes since you will be assessing the capability at performing the process.
• The process is the sum of the tasks that are shown in the ability6® Tasks View skills matrix.

We also recommend that you view this page which provides a visual explanation of the task and process skills matrix

0 = No Current Proficiency / Skill Requirement

1 = Required Proficiency / Skill | No Current Competency

2 = Required Proficiency / Skill | Partial Competency Level

3 = Required Proficiency / Skill | Good Competency Level

4 = Required Proficiency / Skill | Advanced/Trainer Competency Level

5 = Strategic Influence/Power

The skills rating is a number and colour, so that when you produce the skills matrix you can visually interpret the result both by the score (accumulation of numbers) and as a heat-map (areas of red needing development, through to green showing strong capability).

An example of the completed matrix would look akin to the below:

Completed skills matrix at task level with advanced skills proficiency targetting turned on