How can we best support employees in the management of their jobs and skills, if we do not have a precise mapping of the organization’s jobs?
The job observatory is one of the most powerful sources of monitoring… It is an element of the Strategic Workforce Planning It is an element of the company’s information system from which all the players in the company can benefit: to easily and quickly identify the different professions, their specificities, their foreseeable evolutions, etc.
The occupation observatory: a perfect benchmarking tool
The job observatory monitors the various jobs practiced within the organization. Its work, which may be linked to the management of jobs and careers (Strategic Workforce Planning) have an informational value for all employees. Thus, thanks to the widest possible dissemination of the information listed, the job observatory capitalizes on and enhances the experience of jobs throughout the organization.
How to use a jobs observatory?
The job observatory is used to inform employees about the jobs that may interest them thanks to several search criteria:
- By major fields of activity
- According to the diplomas they have
- According to their current skills
- According to their background
We have put together a document that is freely accessible:“the set of job observatories”.
The information contained in these inventories is shared and made available to all. A website can perfectly host this data, while being designed as a place for exchange, sharing and projection of the company’s approach. Jobs & Skills Management of the company’s approach.
The job observatory: updated data on critical skills
While it is particularly valuable for employees who exercise their talents in a given profession and who wish to know where their skills can also be required, the observatory of professions is actually virtuous for all the company’s stakeholders.
Who are the job observatories intended for?
The actors who can benefit from these observatories are managers, HR teams, internal and external training entities and general management. Let’s look at this in more detail:
- Managers, concerned about ensuring that the skills required for the future activities of the company will be well owned by their employees,
- HR teams whose main concern is to anticipate business needs and adapt know-how to the company’s environment
- Training organizations, both internal and external tothe company, which must offer educational programs that are consistent with the company’s ecosystem and the skills employees
- The general management, sensitive to the evolution of the company’s competitiveness and to its business prospects…
In addition to the job observatories, the protagonists of the transformation of jobs can rely on the Répertoire Opérationnel des Métiers et des Emplois. The latter has recently been renovated: find out more about the innovations of ROME 4.0.
The job observatory: a tool for analysis and anticipation
One of the essential missions of the job observatory is to gain a very detailed understanding of the jobs that make up the organization, in order to be able to anticipate changes.
Thanks to its work, the job observatory highlights:
– “Emerging” jobs, i.e. those that are not yet recognized but whose activities already exist in a fragmented manner
– “Transforming” jobs, i.e. those that are recognized but whose areas of activity may evolve. It is the extent of this evolution that determines the degree of transformation of the profession,
– And, finally, the professions “in obsolescence”, i.e., those that are recognized but whose fields of activity are disappearing.
The “prospective profession” (PM) studies carried out by the observatory of professions are both quantitative and qualitative. They make it possible to identify the actual content of current or future jobs and the qualifications that correspond to them. They thus aim to identify – as accurately as possible – the transformations that will occur in the nature of jobs. This makes it possible to identify the areas in which employees need to acquire new skills skills and new know-how in order to continue to perform their duties in the future.
In addition to internal development factors, the job observatory also takes into account external environmental factors that may have an impact on certain jobs and deduces the consequences in terms of skills and initial or continuing training.
Let's take the example of a restaurant voucher issuer. For decades, some of its employees were printers who activated the presses to print the famous "luncheon vouchers" on paper. In recent years, with the advent of digitalization, the paper voucher has gradually disappeared in favor of the smart lunch card. Fortunately, the Observatory of Professions had anticipated the phenomenon of this "transforming" profession and started the reconversion of its printers!
Would you like to know more about the job observatory? Read our article on its use in monitoring the evolution of your professions.
