Identifying and addressing skills gaps through SFIA
SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age) is an internationally recognised digital skills assessment tool. It provides individuals and organisations with a clear, standardised way to:
- Understand their current skills
- Identify skills gaps
- Plan career development
- Map roles to capability levels
- Make confident decisions about learning and progression
Since SFIA was developed 25 years ago, the framework has evolved through several iterations in response to the ever-evolving landscape of tech skills. Today, Australia is the second-largest user of the framework internationally.
ACS Workforce Development Manager Lisa Syrek helps organisations to implement the SFIA framework and understand the skills and capabilities of their people: “Using SFIA, organisations can identify what skills they have, what skills they’re missing and how to help their people upskill.” This provides organisations with the evidence base they need to help direct investment, learning activities, strategic planning and hiring decisions.
SFIA also plays an important role in enabling staff to move more effectively between different roles based on their skills profile. As Lisa describes, “The framework can be used as an objective assessment tool to facilitate transfers to higher-skilled jobs.” This mobility is particularly important to women. “Women typically underestimate their own skillset compared to their SFIA assessment scores. For example, I’ve worked with an experienced research librarian who was empowered to pursue a business analyst role following a positive SFIA skills assessment, which she had previously considered beyond her capabilities,” explains Lisa.
The main users of the SFIA framework in Australia are utility businesses such as water, power and health entities, as well as federal and state governments. Lisa advises how organisations consider the implementation of the SFIA framework when they are undergoing a period of digital transformation. “ACS will then work with organisations over a period of 12 months to help them implement the framework, including profiling all roles to the SFIA framework, validating with senior leadership, employee skills self-assessment, presenting results and ongoing sustainment and support,” outlines Lisa.
“SFIA is not just about assessing digital skills for tech businesses. The SFIA framework can be applied across the whole organisation, helping organisations to build future-ready workforces by assessing and training today for the skills of the future, as technology impacts all walks of life.” - Lisa Syrek, Workforce Development Manager, ACS
SFIA is constantly evolving to reflect the ever-changing skills needs and landscape of the global tech workforce. SFIA 9 was released in October 2024, providing a more user-friendly storefront with 16 new professional attributes, including interpersonal skills and behavioural factors.
In the future, ACS has a vision to map every job role to the SFIA framework and enable matching of skills to suitable roles through AI, as we move increasingly to a skills-based future-state economy.
To find out more about SFIA and using the skills framework to assess your capabilities, visit https://www.acs.org.au/solutionsforemployers/mysfia.html
