We are thrilled that you have chosen to use MuchSkills. In this guide you have everything you need to get started as efficiently as possible. If you have any questions or need help, please write to us at support@muchskills.com or use the chat feature.
The best way for organisations to increase employee engagement and productivity is to let employees do what they do best, according to research conducted on millions of respondents across the world.
Use MuchSkills to match employee skills and interests to their roles to see increased engagement, productivity, sales, and profitability.
If you have not done so already, make sure to sign up and create an account. Follow the instructions and add your skills to build your personal profile. When you are done, click on ‘TEAM/ORG’ in the top menu and set up your company profile. Once you complete that, you will be able to see the team overview where your skills have populated.
Click on ‘TEAM/ORG’ in the top menu and then click the ‘Settings’ tab on the right. Click on ‘Team Settings’ and make sure you add office locations, team description, and the different departments/squads/teams of your organisation. These settings will be valuable later when you want to see skill overviews per department and location.
We recommend that you watch this video to understand how you can set up MuchSkills in the best way possible.
MuchSkills comes with three out-of-the-box skill set categories that employees can fill in without any limitations. These are ‘job focus’, ‘soft skills’ and ‘technical skills’. These skill sets are from the employee's perspective and are derived after the employee reflects on what they bring to the organisation. These categories are meant to capture what employees know well and enjoy working with, and what they think they do best.
Custom skills are the organisation’s perspective of skills. In these categories, organisations add skills that are relevant and important to the organisation, and employees then choose the skills they bring to the table from this list.
There are no limitations to adding skills in this category, and MuchSkills customers map everything from animal nutrition and environmental expertise to soft skills of lawyers, SAP implementation to SalesForce development. The key is to map the skills that matter to your organisation.
To set up your own skill set, click on ‘TEAM/ORG’ in the top menu and then click on ‘Settings’ tab on the right. Click on ‘Manage Skills’ and then ‘+ Skill Category’. Add a name for your skill set and choose if you want it displayed as a bubble chart or sector chart. Now add skills, description of the skills, what department that can select the listed skill and if the skill is mandatory.
Bubble chart
Pick the bubble chart display if the skills you want to map are not easy to compare or measure. When you use this display, once employees add skills, they can tap on the bubbles to increase or decrease their size to indicate what they are more interested in or knowledgeable about.
Sector chart
Pick the sector chart if the skills you want to map can be compared with others. When you use this display, employees add their skills and can rate themselves as ‘Beginner’, ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Expert’ in those skills. Employees will also be able to compare their skill levels with those of their colleagues.
Adding skills and descriptions
Once you created your skill category you can add skills and a description for each skill. The name of the skill and description will be displayed when users pick skills from you custom skill category under the section ‘MY SKILLS’.
Department(s)
Some skills are very specific to a certain department. When you choose ‘ALL’ it means the skill will be available to all users. If you select a specific departments it means only users that are members in these departments can see and pick these skills.
Mandatory
This feature is valuable if you want to measure the skill level of a certain skill for all users of a specific department.
It's possible to make a skill mandatory for a specific department. This means that the skill will be deployed to all users of that department and users will be able to modify their skill/interest level once deployed. Select skills and departments that should have mandatory skills. Once you are done click ‘Deploy Mandatory Skills’ to activate and push out the skill to all users.
We recommend that you watch this video to learn more about custom skills.
Invite team leaders to join MuchSkills before you invite everyone else to do so. This makes it easier for team members to choose their managers when they are making their own profiles. Similarly, ask team leaders to spend time to make their profiles as detailed as possible as that inspires their teams to make detailed profiles too. All the data is then used to make a detailed org chart. Make sure that everyone understands the importance of completing this exercise.
There are three ways to invite team members to join MuchSkills.
To invite by email or link click on ‘TEAM/ORG’ in the top menu, click on "Members" tab and then click on the ‘INVITE’ button to the right. Follow the instructions to invite your team. If you want to connect your HR System such as Personio, click on ‘TEAM/ORG’ and then ‘Settings’ tab. Click on ‘INTEGRATIONS’ to see if your HR system is supported. If it is, follow instructions. If it is not on that list, contact support@muchskills.com and we can discuss a solution to your specific needs.
We recommend that you watch this video to learn more about how you can invite your team members and colleagues to your MuchSkills Team/Organization.
Before asking everyone in your team or organisation to log in to MuchSkills, you must first inform them about how it works. Below is a suggestion of what you can say in an email to your colleagues. You can also download a ready to go presentation that you can share with your team informing them about MuchSkills. Download presentation.
Hello colleagues,
We have decided to start using a new tool, MuchSkills, to help us identify and focus on our strengths at work.
I will invite you to log in to MuchSkills to create a skills profile. Setting it up should take you just a few minutes. Once you are done, you will have a beautifully visualised skills profile that highlights your Job Focus (what you are good at and what gives you energy), Soft Skills, Technical Skills and our custom skill sets. You can then share this with your colleagues.
Showcase your superpowers and get to know the strengths of your colleagues – Once everyone has built their skills profile and shared it, you will be able to view it. Similarly, your colleagues will also be able to see your visualised profile – what you’ve listed as your key skills and strengths, and what energises you.
Easily search for superpowers in your team or organisation – Once all of you have your own MuchSkills profiles, it will be easy for everyone to find colleagues who possess specific skills. Simply log in to MuchSkills, click on ‘TEAM/ORG’, type in the skill you are looking for in the search field and press ‘enter’. You will see matching skills. Click on a skill and you will get a list of all colleagues who possess that skill.
Create skills-based project teams – If you have a new project for which you need many different skills, log in to MuchSkills and click on ‘PROJECT’. Then create a project and list the skills you need for it. The MuchSkills software will then suggest to you the names of colleagues with those specific skills.
Want to know more about MuchSkills? - You can visit their website or watch a videos explaining how it works.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me.
The org chart is automatically created as and when users join and select who their direct manager is. If you are an admin, you can modify a user’s direct manager. To do this, click on ‘TEAM/ORG’ in the top menu and then click on ‘Settings’ tab to the right. Click on ‘MANAGE MEMBERS’ and you can modify a user’s direct manager, department, location and role.
To view the org chart click on ‘TEAM/ORG’, click on ‘Memebers’ tab. You will now view all members in a grid view. To view your organisation’s reporting structure, change from ‘GRID VIEW’ to ‘HIERARCHY’ using the drop down menu on the right. Click on any face to see their top skill, contact info and to visit their profile.
In this video, we show you how to set up the org chart and how to view it.
Below, we outline a best practice approach for how your organisation can be more strengths focused and increase employee engagement. Do remember that every organisation is unique. Review and implement what you find is the most suitable for your organisation.
When you start using MuchSkills, you will immediately get a deeper understanding of what members of your team enjoy doing and the skills they possess. You may also discover skill gaps, where employees lack the necessary skills to ensure their success and that of your organisation. Create a plan for how you can upskill your workforce and see increased productivity and better results. Click here to read our 8-step guide to successfully upskill your employees.
In many organisations, project teams are created based on who you know instead of individuals with the most suitable skills for the project. Log in to MuchSkills and click on ‘PROJECTS’ to create project teams based on skills.
Individuals, teams and organisations that are aware of their strengths will see increased engagement and productivity. Read this step-by-step guide on how to build employee strengths which includes research and data about why it matters. You can find the guide here.
Regular one-on-ones and check-ins are proven to increase employee engagement. Read our research-packed guides on how you can implement these best practices. Feel free to add these texts to your internal guides to make it easy for team leaders to use.
