Lightcast unveils Skills Agent to streamline HR skills mapping

Lightcast has introduced a new automation tool for its Talent Transform platform, aimed at addressing inefficiencies in job architecture and skills intelligence across HR and talent management functions.

Automation launch

The new tool, Skills Agent, provides real-time skill-to-job alignment and market-driven skill recommendations using current labour market data. This automation is designed to replace the manual skill mapping processes historically used by businesses to keep job and skills information current.

Skills Agent automatically updates skill-to-job associations, eliminating the need for routine manual audits and reducing the frequency of costly consulting projects. The system proactively identifies shifts in both the labour market and internal organisational requirements, recommending relevant updates to skill profiles based on observed trends.

Labour market intelligence

Skills Agent leverages Lightcast's proprietary taxonomy, which covers over 73,000 occupations and 34,000 validated skills. The taxonomy is already in use by around 6,000 organisations and more than 250 HR technology partners worldwide. The system benchmarks internal company data against external trends, enhancing organisations' ability to stay aligned with evolving industry skills requirements.

According to research from Deloitte, only 17% of organisations believe they can anticipate required skills with confidence. Many employers still rely on periodic audits or use libraries that may not reflect current needs.

Efficiency gains

Manual skills mapping is often resource intensive, taking between two and four hours for each role, with additional time for quarterly updates. For a company with 1,000 roles, these requirements can add up to over 4,000 hours annually, or costs ranging from USD $400,000 to USD $800,000 if outsourced.

Skills Agent aims to reduce these operating costs by keeping job-skill relationships current and self-maintaining, while increasing the agility of redeployment and workforce planning. Lightcast estimates a return on investment for users of between six and twelve times in the first year of use, based on time and cost savings.

Standardisation

The Talent Transform platform supports standardising job architecture across different business functions and geographical regions to help ensure job profiles remain up to date as skill requirements shift. This approach enables organisations to maintain a unified strategy across internal teams, as well as when benchmarking against competitors and peers.

Devesh Awasthi, Global L&D Leader at Dr. Reddy's Labouratories, said:

"Talent Transform gave us the tools to drive our skills strategy independently. The platform gives us the clarity, structure, and market intelligence we need to govern skills effectively and keep our talent data current. It's been a game-changer for driving a more skills-based approach across the organization."

Data-driven confidence

Mark Hanson, Vice President of Strategy at Lightcast, said:

"Most organizations already know that becoming skills-based is the goal-but they get stuck trying to maintain the data. This is not just faster-it's smarter. And it gives our customers the confidence to act on skills data, not just collect it."