Description of the Inventory

1. Why a Skills and Talents Inventory (STI)?

Between now and 2010, around 800 people will leave CERN either on retirement or at the end of a contract or project. Most of these people will have to be replaced, either in the same posts or in new ones. During this period, we will not only have to complete the construction of the LHC and subsequently install and operate the machine but must also prepare CERN for future projects. Each Department already has a good picture of the skills being used by employees within it. However, skills that are not in use (because they are not needed for a given post) are much less well known. Moreover, Departments know virtually nothing about the skills available in other Departments. These skills are human resources, which form the human capital of our Organization.

This autumn, we are going to review the planning of posts and human resources needed in the long term. It is vital that we have an inventory of the human skills currently available at CERN so that we are able to determine which human skills will be needed in the future.

2. How will it work ?

Starting in August 2004, each member of the CERN staff will be invited to identify his main skills using a predefined skills model. Access to the STI will be via the user-friendly EDH interface, which has the advantage that everyone is already familiar with it. Supervisors will be responsible for checking and validating the information entered.

3. Who drew up the skills model and on what basis?

The skills inventory has been drawn up over the last few months by a multi-disciplinary working group comprising two project leaders and at least one representative of each Department. The technical and/or job-specific skills identified by the team are those which CERN needs today and will continue to need in the future. It will therefore be a complete and exhaustive skills inventory covering all CERN's disciplines and various levels of expertise, ranging from mechanical to electronic, accounting, translation, recruitment, safety and particle physics skills.

(A pdf version of the skills model may be consulted / printed in both languages: )

4. What will be done with the data?

All these skills constitute human resources. Knowing the human resources it has available is vital for CERN. It will allow the Organization to redeploy certain people to other Departments and make use of them rather than letting them go. It will also avoid the Organization having to look outside for vital skills that are not always easy to find.

In other words, the Management will be able to use the STI to identify people with specific skills or aspirations. It will be possible to offer candidates activities within a project or to use the information in the inventory in the context of personnel planning or internal recruitment for a specific post.

The Human Resources Department will be fully competent to draw up lists of potential candidates for internal mobility or to facilitate transfers from one Department to another in accordance with normal practice.

In the longer term, this tool will be essential for other aspects of human resources management, such as career management or succession planning within and between Departments.