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Human Resources  ›  Career and Development  ›  Professional Development Programs  ›  Skills and Assessments in Workday (Pilot)

Skills and Assessments in Workday

Pilot Program for the Office of Human Resources and Computing Services

Did you know you can use Workday to review and assess your role's key skills, document your expertise and identify the skills needed for the roles you aspire to? Skill review and assessment is not an additional form of performance management. Instead, this process can help you and your supervisor create a personalized professional development plan. By building your career profile in Workday, you can focus on concrete steps to develop skills for your current role and future roles of greater responsibility.

On this page: Employee Process | Supervisor Process | Career Profile Development | Planning for Employee Development | Skill Development Opportunities | Skill Level Descriptions | Skill and Assessment Reports | FAQs

The Benefits of Creating a Professional Development Plan

  • For individuals: Equip yourself with the knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in a dynamic workplace. Investing in professional development can help you achieve greater job satisfaction, enhanced performance and greater career opportunities.
  • For supervisors: Gain greater insight into your employees' capabilities, development needs and career goals. This will help you provide more targeted and concrete development guidance.
  • For organizations: Identify skill gaps, leverage existing talent and implement targeted development initiatives. Foster career mobility and improve employee retention.

Program Resources

Pilot Program

This pilot program is open to the Office of Human Resources (June 2025) and Computing Services (later in 2025). If your area would like to be considered for a future implementation, please contact the Office of Human Resources.

Skills and Assessments: Employee Process

The Basics: Employee Process

Employees use Workday functionality to review, edit and assess their skills. These assessments highlight skill gaps, guide development discussions and reveal opportunities for mentorship or upskilling. They help align your growth with the goals of your team and organization.

Keep in mind …

  • Employees should review, update, and assess the level of proficiency of the skills that have already been linked to their job profile.
  • Employees can also add other skills they possess that are relevant to their current career path with a goal of 10–15 of the most relevant and impactful skills related to your current role and roles that you might aspire to.

Learn More: Workday Tutorial for Employees

Watch this short video to learn how to update, assess and manage your skills in Workday.

Take Action: Maintain Your Development Plan

  • Plan to review and assess your skills annually or biannually, especially after completing new projects, certifications or development goals and to ensure they are current and up to date.
  • Make time to discuss development as you do with performance management. During your meetings with your supervisor, discuss progress toward your development goals.
  • Be honest in your skill assessment. You want to be honest about the areas where you can grow and the strengths that might be useful to you and your team

Skills and Assessments: Supervisor Process

The Basics: Supervisor Process

Supervisors use Workday functionality to assess their team members' skills, including those added by the employee.

Keep in mind …

  • Work with your team members to keep their list of goals manageable. Aim for 10–15 of the most relevant and impactful.
  • Assess only those skills where you have firsthand knowledge, as employees may have skills that are not used in their current role.
  • Leverage reporting to identify trends. For example, inexperience in a valued skill across the team may point to an area of focus for team development.

Learn More: Workday Tutorial for Supervisors

In this short video, supervisors learn how to complete skill assessments for your employees, interpret key reports, and use these insights to support development and workforce agility.

Take Action: Promote Your Team's Development

  • Set aside time annually or biannually to review your team's goals and assessments to ensure they are accurate and up to date.
  • Make time to discuss development as you do with performance management. During your meetings with your team members, discuss progress toward their development goals.
  • Use reporting to identify skills gaps and/or opportunities to leverage individual or team strengths.

Career Profile Development

The Basics: Career Profile

Employees use Workday functionality to create a career profile. Your career profile is your professional snapshot. It includes your job history, certifications, education and now your skills, skills assessments and skill interests. It also supports internal job applications and career planning.

Keep in mind …

  • The career profile can be used to apply to internal job postings. It also provides information to your supervisor to foster more productive development discussions and planning.
  • The career profile can be used to document your progress toward development goals by noting additional training or certifications you've earned.

Learn More: Career Profile Tutorial

Learn how to update each section and keep your profile current to reflect your evolving career.

Take Action: Maintain Your Career Profile

  • Set aside time annually or biannually to review your career profile so it remains accurate and up to date.

  • Update your career profile after key milestones, such as learning a new skill, earning a certification or shifting career interests. Keeping it current helps you stay ready for growth opportunities.

Planning for Employee Development

The Basics: Employee Development

  • Reviewing and assessing your skills is just one step toward achieving your development goals. You must also identify how you will acquire the knowledge or skills you need, how you will apply that new knowledge and how you will measure your progress or success.
  • Work to develop both growth areas and strengths.
  • Limit your focus to one or two skills at a time so you have the time and ability to make the progress necessary to develop.

Learn More: Employee Development Resources

This 15-minute video details the planning process for employees and supervisors.

Take Action: Make a Development Plan

  • Supervisors: schedule time with your team members to discuss their development and/or incorporate into existing one-on-one meetings.
  • Employees: request time with your supervisor to discuss development and/or incorporate into existing one-on-one meetings. Consider the key steps:
    1. Assess — What are your goals? Identify one or two skills to focus on.
    2. Acquire — How will you build those skills? Consider training, mentorship or on-the-job training.
    3. Apply — Where can you use your new skills? Look for projects or tasks to practice them.
    4. Measure — How will you track your progress? Define what success looks like and set a timeline.

Skill Development Opportunities

Skill Level Descriptions

  1. Beginner: Understands basic fundamentals and can demonstrate this skill in straightforward situations.
  2. Intermediate: Proficient in fundamental applications of the skill and has demonstrated in varied situations.
  3. Experienced: Extends beyond fundamentals and can demonstrate this skill without guidance in varied situations.
  4. Advanced: Deep knowledge of concepts and applications of this skill and can demonstrate in complex situations.
  5. Expert: Specializes in this skill, mentors others and easily demonstrates in the most complex situations.

Skill and Assessment Reports

Employees and their supervisors can use these reports to identify skills needed for a role, highlight skill matches and gaps, review supervisor assessments, and more.

To run any report:

  1. Enter the report name into the search field in Workday.
  2. Click on the report name from the search results.
Report name Who has access? Description and guidance Data provided
Suggested Skills for Job Profiles

Designated HR roles, specific department roles
  • This report uses Workday Skills Cloud to recommend relevant skills for job profiles. It helps you identify and analyze the skills associated with specific roles.
  • You can search by job profiles, job families or job family groups.
  • Skills that have been added to the job profile will not display as suggestions.
  • Job profile
  • Job families on job profile
  • Default job title
  • Job profile summary
  • Management level
  • Job level
  • Job code
  • Job profile skills and skill levels
  • Suggested skills based on:
    • Job profile data
    • Job requisition data
    • Job requisition skill data (if applicable)
Job Profile Skill Comparison Supervisor, next level supervisor, designated HR roles
  • This report compares an employee's skills to the skills required for their job profile, organized by department or organization. It highlights skill matches and gaps, providing a summary of how an employee's skills align with their job requirements.
  • Choose "My Organizations" from the dropdown to view employees within a specific organization.
  • Check "Include Subordinate Organizations" to see all employees in your organization chart.
  • Supervisory organization
  • Employee ID
  • Worker name
  • Job profile
  • Employee Skills
  • Job Profile Skills
  • Matching Job Profile Skills
  • Job Profile Skill Gaps
  • Flag to indicate when an employee has the skills needed for the job profile
Employees in Job Profile Skill Comparison Supervisor, next level supervisor, designated HR roles
  • This report provides a comparative analysis of the skills of employees who share a common job profile.
  • Enter the desired job profile.
  • Information will only be displayed if the employee has added skills to their of the career profile.
  • Limited to those within the reporting line and to those job profiles within the pilot groups.
  • Worker
  • Position Title
  • Skills
  • Skill Interests
  • Career Preferences
  • Job Interests
Employee Skill Summary Supervisor, next level supervisor, designated HR roles
  • This report provides an overview of job profile skills, employee skills and suggested skills.
  • Choose "My Organizations" from the dropdown to view employees within a specific organization.
  • Check "Include Subordinate Organizations" to see all employees in your organization chart.
  • Suggested skills include suggestions from job and employee's profile.
  • Blanks indicate that an employee has not completed the Edit Skill task.
  • Supervisory organization
  • Employee ID
  • Employee name
  • Job profile
  • Job Profile skills
  • Employee skills
  • Suggested skills
My Supervisor Skills Assessments Employee
  • Employees can use this report to view assessments completed by their supervisors.
  • This report automatically runs for your designated supervisor. No parameters are required.
  • Supervisor skill assessments
  • Date completed
  • Assessor
  • Skill selected to assess
  • Assessed skill rating
  • Assessed skill rating comment
View Supervisor Skill Assessments Supervisor
  • This report provides an overview of supervisor assessments for employees in your organization.
  • Filter by employee or organization.
  • To see individual employees, enter the employee's name in the Worker field.
  • To view all employees within one or more of your organizations, choose the applicable organizations under "My Organizations."
  • Default is to view most recent skills assessments. Check "All" if you want to see past assessments.
  • This report does not include employee assessments.
  • Worker name
  • Supervisory organization
  • Supervisor skill assessment
  • Date completed
  • Assessor
  • Skill selected to assess
  • Assessed skill rating
Skill Assessment Summary Supervisor, next level supervisor, designated HR roles
  • This report displays skill assessments completed by both employees and their supervisors.
  • Defaults to full organization.
  • To see individual employees, enter the employee's name in the Worker field, leave default organization as Carnegie Mellon University and include subordinate organizations by clicking the checkbox.
  • To see employees and their team members, enter their name in "Organization by Type."
  • Default is to view subordinate organizations.
  • If a manager reassesses a skill, all assessments will be visible on the report.
  • If an employee reassesses a skill, only the most recent skill will be visible.
  • Employee name
  • Employee ID
  • Job profile
  • Job title
  • Supervisory organization
  • Supervisor name
  • Hire date
  • Skill
  • Skill ratings for worker
  • Skill rating source
  • Skill rating assessment date
Employee's Self-Assessed Skills Supervisor, next level supervisor, designated HR roles
  • This report displays employee self-assessments. It is used as an embedded analytic when a supervisor initiates the "Assess Skills for Worker" business process. It can also be run on an ad hoc basis.
  • Report is automatically available when the supervisor initiates the "assess skills for worker" business process.
  • To run ad hoc, the supervisor will click on the report and enter the employee's name in the worker field.
  • Employee name
  • Employee ID
  • Job profile
  • Job title
  • Self assessed skill rating for worker

Frequently Asked Questions

Do low skill assessment ratings impact my performance review?
No. Skill assessments are separate from the performance review process. They are intended to support your development, not measure your performance. Honest assessments help to identify areas for growth and showcase strengths that can be leveraged in your current role.

What are skill sources?
Skill sources are the places where you've demonstrated or developed a skill, such as your work history, certifications, education or skill self-assessments. Supervisor assessments also become visible skill sources once submitted.

How are job profile skills identified?
Job profile skills are defined by leadership through a review and benchmarking process. They represent the core abilities needed to succeed in a particular role.

What other skills should I add if they are not included in my job profile skills?
If a skill isn't currently listed in your job profile but you do have it — and it supports your current career path — it's worth adding. Think of your skills profile as a living snapshot of your capabilities.

What are skill interests?
Skill interests are the areas where you'd like to grow your capabilities. Identifying your skill interests helps guide your career path and development opportunities.