Turning data into development: How Universidad El Bosque mapped its own team's growth with 1Mentor

In its first B2B talent diagnostic, the university replaced guesswork with a data-driven map of 57 employees' skills, goals, and gaps — laying the foundation for its 2025 training strategy.

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Full Report (16 pages)

Executive summary

Between May and December 2024, Universidad El Bosque turned a tool it knew well toward a new audience: its own people. Working with 1Mentor by QS, the university's Academic Vice-Rectorate ran a first-phase talent diagnostic across 57 administrative employees, translating a vague sense that “we should keep developing” into a concrete map of 46 areas of interest, 76 professional goals, and 187 distinct skills. The result is a data foundation the human-resources team is now using to design targeted training programs for 2025.

Context and challenge

Universidad El Bosque is known for developing others — its students. But delivering on that mission depends on a capable, continually growing administrative team, aligned with the institution's strategic vision. Strengthening that team called for more than good intentions; it called for data.

A baseline survey made the challenge vivid. Before 1Mentor, 58% of participants felt their role required new skills to stay relevant — yet 58% didn't know which skills to improve, and 63% were unaware of the training options available to them. In other words, a motivated workforce was flying blind: eager to grow, but without a map. The university needed a data-driven way to identify skill gaps, align competencies with strategic objectives, and design personalized learning paths.

1Mentor's value

1Mentor brought the same career-intelligence engine it uses with students to the university's workforce. Its value followed a familiar loop — explore, uncover gaps, and build a plan — here in service of institutional talent strategy.

First, the platform helped each employee explore their interests and professional goals, surfacing what motivates them and where they want to go. Then it made gaps visible, measuring current skills against those aspirations and the competencies the institution needs. Finally, it pointed toward formation: predefined learning paths that give each person a structured route for continuous development. What had been individual guesswork became a shared, structured picture.

The implementation journey

The first phase was, by design, a diagnostic. Led by 1Mentor's Customer Success team together with the Academic Vice-Rectorate, 57 administrative employees completed an assessment through the platform. Rather than a one-size survey, the exercise captured each person's areas of interest, professional goals, and current skills — then mapped them against predefined learning paths.

The emphasis was on decision-ready output. The aim was not simply to measure the team, but to hand leadership a foundation precise enough to plan against — and to do it without disrupting day-to-day operations across the Vice-Rectorate.

Results and impact

From 57 employees, the diagnostic produced a rich institutional picture: 46 areas of interest, reflecting the team's aspirations; 76 unique professional goals, each a thread for a growth plan; and 187 distinct skills analyzed, a solid base for targeted training. Predefined learning paths gave the findings an immediate, actionable shape.

The impact is strategic. The university now holds a detailed assessment of its administrative team that lets it design 2025 training programs led by human resources, manage talent more efficiently using real skills-and-goals data, make development decisions aligned with institutional vision, and expand the initiative to more areas across the community — extending 1Mentor's role in professional growth well beyond this first cohort.

In their words

Because this first phase focused on diagnosis, the clearest “voice” is the team's own stated ambition. Asked what they most wanted to develop, employees named the skills reshaping the modern workplace: data analytics and business intelligence, applied artificial intelligence and Power BI, leadership and decision-making, change management and people development. It was a workforce naming its own future — precisely the signal a training strategy needs to hear.

Lessons and opportunities

As a first phase, the exercise proved the model: a data-driven diagnostic can turn talent development from intuition into strategy. The real test now lies ahead — whether the 2025 programs built on this foundation move the baseline that started it, closing the very gaps the survey exposed. That makes a follow-up measurement the natural next step, turning a one-time snapshot into a way to track progress over time.

The other opportunity is scale. With one team mapped, the university sees a clear path to extend the initiative across more areas, benefiting more employees and deepening a culture of continuous growth.

View the QS World Future Skills Index series

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