Dive Brief:

• With a $1.5 million grant from the Lumina Foundation, Credly and the American Council on Education have announced an initiative that will provide portable, digital credentialing for workers, no matter where the learning occurs, according to a press release.
• The effort was launched in response to growing employer demand for better evidence of skills and competencies among both job-seekers and current employees, as the majority of learning does not come through a traditional educational setting, the groups explained.
• The initiative aims to create a scalable process to record the outcomes of training programs as discrete competencies. For employers, the ability to quickly recognize competencies and skills will enable them to maximize their investment in any additional learning necessary to right-skill the employee, they said.

Dive Insight:

The skills gap continues to hamper employers' hiring efforts and employees continue to struggle to showcase their skills obtained outside the traditional learning environment. Portable credentials or a "working transcript" could potentially close some of that gap.

Additionally, as some look to upskill current employees, employers must understand what talents and competencies employees currently hold. These portable credentials could provide a baseline to personalize training.

We’ve seen the tech industry move away from four-year degree requirements and toward skills-based competencies in hiring, which has included some interest in digital badges and credentialing. With this latest partnership, HR professionals in other industries may well start seeing workers display digital badges, too.