Assessment and recognition
Suggestions ranging from the rigour and methodology of how skills are measured, through the tools and processes that support assessment in practice, to how the resulting credentials are recognised across organisations, sectors and geographies.
This breadth reflects how central assessment is to the value SFIA delivers.
For employers, assessment is the bridge between the framework and workforce decisions. For practitioners, it shapes career visibility and mobility. For the wider SFIA ecosystem, the consistency and rigour of assessment practice underpin the meaning of SFIA based credentials.
Key questions raised through the consultation
Several distinct questions emerged from the workshops:
- How assessment processes can be scaled to meet growing demand.
- Whether lighter touch tools could sit alongside more comprehensive assessment products, particularly for smaller organisations.
- How best to assess skills where the working environment significantly affects how they can be applied.
- Whether there is a role for individual level certification that complements the current organisation mediated approach.
- How SFIA based credentials can be made genuinely portable across employers, sectors and jurisdictions.
These questions reflect both practical challenges and broader considerations about how assessment supports mobility, fairness and trust.
How we will take these suggestions forward
We will work through these issues as we develop SFIA 10.
- Some questions relate directly to the framework and how skills, environments and behaviours are described.
- Others relate to the Foundation and the wider assessment ecosystem, including tools, partnerships and accreditation mechanisms that support practice on the ground.
- Some ideas may not be the right direction for SFIA when considered against the framework’s design principles and long term stability.
In all cases we will be transparent about what we conclude and why, and will report back through this site as our thinking develops.
Related suggestions raised at SFIA 10 workshops.
Disclaimer: These suggestions reflect the personal views of individual workshop attendees. They are provided substantially verbatim and do not represent the official position or endorsement of the SFIA Foundation.
- Consider how SFIA's assessment processes can be scaled to meet growing demand
- Consider whether a lighter assessment tool would help smaller organisations alongside the more comprehensive assessment products already available
- Skills operate within a work environment, and some depend on things being in place to function as expected (such as delegated authority). The impact of environment on the effective application of skills could be considered
- The assessment process can feel cumbersome for individuals not in work. Consider whether an individual-level certification programme of some kind would assist individuals, alongside the current organisation-mediated approach
- What is considered good practice when measuring skills: should assessment always be conducted at an individual level first and then aggregated to teams, or are there recognised approaches for assessing skills directly at a team level?
- Use authentic, performance-based assessments that reflect real-world application, so that hiring and promotion are based on proven capability rather than credentials alone
- Make SFIA-based skills and credentials transferable across sectors, geographies, jobs, jurisdictions and agencies, supporting mobility across departments and reducing siloed career pathways