Skill gap analysis for employees
You’re coming up with a new product launch, but does your existing team have the skills to get it done? Or do you need to hire different team members? Or do you need to add additional training to team members before starting this new project? These are just some of the many scenarios where a skills gap analysis for employees makes sense. Other examples might include changing job roles, requiring the employee to take on new responsibilities or shifts in skills required due to new company technologies. So, what exactly is a skill gap analysis? It can be defined as comparing the skills and knowledge needed to complete a task with the employee’s current skill level to meet the requirements of the task. After analyzing the gap between the two, team leaders can work with employees to develop a plan to bridge the skills gap.
Benefits of initiating skill gap analysis
Now that you know what a skill gap analysis for employees is, what are some of the benefits for managers and organizations?
Identifies employee weak spots
All people have a combination of strengths and weaknesses. While you may have a marketing department equipped with communication skills, one team member may be adept at writing and editing skills while another may excel at design skills. By conducting a skills gap analysis, you can identify where employees might need additional training to bring everyone up to the same skill level.
Offers professional development
If an employee feels they lack a particular skill, they may not always talk about the need for additional training. Or the employee may know or want additional training in certain skills and feel that their company does not provide such training. Hence he becomes indignant and even loses consciousness. Then he starts looking for a company that is more interested in his career path.
So it is important to conduct a skills gap analysis for employees. This will define a development plan tailored to each employee. It will show your employees that you value training and development. In addition, you want to equip each of your employees with the right skills to be successful.
Helps human resources
By conducting a skills gap analysis, it will help your HR department. Why? Because they will understand the skills required for a particular role. This helps HR write well-designed job descriptions which lead to better candidates and ultimately stronger new members of the team.
Path for promotion
Managers will also benefit from a skills gap analysis. Because it will show the skills required for each level within their team. If a senior or senior member leaves the company, it becomes clear what skills more junior team members will need in order to move into these senior positions.
Increased productivity
Perhaps the most important benefit of skill gap analysis is increased productivity. When you identify the skills needed in a training setting, your company will become better at managing time, planning work, and staying on project budgets more effectively. All these factors make the company stronger as a whole and better at achieving goals.
How do you begin the skill review process?
Skills gap analysis for employees is useful for any organization. That’s why it’s important to have a thorough review of the skills your employees have versus the skills needed. Here are some steps to take when conducting a skills gap analysis.
List company objectives
Before you begin the analysis, you will want to list the objectives of the company or department. Your goals will determine the skills you are looking to gain from your employees. In addition, it will help prioritize the skills most important to the company. It will be easier to plan your training and get employee engagement by identifying why a skills gap analysis is needed.
Skills needed
Once you’ve reviewed your goals, identify the skills needed to achieve them. This should be broken down by job role. In other words, what specific skills are needed for each job description within your company. You could say that communication in the workplace is one of the most important skills in your company. However, this may be vital to a role such as customer service, but perhaps not as important as learning how to use your new CRM database for your sales team members.
One way to simplify this step is to group similar job roles together. For example, although your marketing team may specialize in different roles on the team, writing is important to the entire team. So by grouping the job roles within your organization, it will help identify the strengths you want each department or team to have.
Measure skills
Next, you’ll need to measure the skill level of your current employees with the skills you’ve identified as most important. One way to do this is to rate either on a numerical scale, from one to 10. One being an employee who doesn’t have much knowledge of the required skills and 10 being an employee who is really good at it. Or another way to measure is to use High, Medium, and Low to indicate how strong a person is at a particular skill.
Learn needed skills
Once you have identified the required skills, it is time to look at your current employees. You can take two different approaches. You choose to either train and develop your existing employees. Or looking to hire employees with the required skills you have identified.
Training of existing employees
With this option, you will not add the time and expense of recruiting new members. However, you will need to dedicate thought and energy into how you train your current employees. And a great way to do it
It is the use of a learning management system provider. They can draft training materials and shape a way to start corporate training. This provider can include blended learning, peer-to-peer learning, and the use of games in training to successfully motivate and develop your team.
Recruitment of new employees
If you choose to hire new team members, just remember what you learned during the skills gap analysis for future employees. This should include things like:
Drafting detailed job descriptions
Incorporate the necessary skills identified
Ask for examples during the interview process of how the candidate has demonstrated these skills in previous jobs.
Tips to measure effective skill gap analysis
Now that you know the process of skill gap analysis for employees, how can you ensure that your analysis is effective? There are a few techniques you can take that may help guide the process and lead to better results. Here are some ways you can measure the skills needed for your employees.
Using Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, provide measurable values that show how effective a company is in achieving key business objectives. However, KPIs can be applied to employees to judge how effective their job skills are in contributing to the company. For example, you can measure career path with the company, compensation, bonuses, benefits, and retention rates.
Once you compare employees with similar job roles, you’ll see trends. This will help you identify skill gaps with certain employees. Once identified, you can start correcting them with practice.
Assessments
Another way to help identify skill gaps is through assessments. Using the learning management system provider, they can prepare assessments with these tests. You will learn where to add skills to each employee and to an entire team. For example, you can measure topics such as sales enablement, performance management, and customer service.
Just remember to use realistic scenarios when asking questions. In this way, it is easy to judge the employee’s reaction in real time. In addition, this will give you a better overview of what skills you are lacking and can be corrected with additional training.
Observations
Nobody likes to feel like they’re being watched or as if they’re being micromanaged. But sometimes watching how employees react in a given situation will help you identify missing skills. Monitoring or feedback is a great way to identify skill gaps for employees because you can see firsthand what problems your team members are facing. Just make sure you explain to your employees that you don’t judge them. But you gather opinions on how to best support them in the job. In addition, you may notice behaviors or reactions that team members themselves don’t realize they’re doing. By explaining all of this to your employees, everyone receives positive feedback and necessary additional training.
Ranking and arranging employees
In order to compare apples to apples, rather than rank the skills required for each job, rank the best performing employees across all teams noting the skills that team members possess. Be sure to note not only work skills but also soft skills such as communication or leadership. This way you will have an indication of what skills and what level these skills need to be in order to complete a skills gap analysis for employees.
This process can also help when hiring new team members to see what the profile of candidates should look like. It can also be helpful with career advancement within your company. More junior members will model the skills needed to move up within the company.
Review process
Employee review time is another great way to collect feedback for skills analysis. Instead of a one-sided review, be sure to collect feedback from their direct reporting staff, their managers, and also from their team members. This will give you a better overview of each employee’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of skills. You may also consider external contacts such as customers or vendors if employees interact with them regularly.
It is also important to involve the employees themselves. This is an opportunity to talk openly and honestly about each employee’s career path, the skills each employee feels they need to enhance, and any obstacles to operating at their full potential.
Templates and case studies
Along with best practices for skill gap analysis for employees, it is helpful to have templates to work with. These models can be adapted to your specifications, but they provide a good starting point to build from.
And if you work in a specific field such as the medical field, certain fields of work, or the sciences, you will need a more detailed form called a Critical Skills Gap Analysis. This is formed when management wants to monitor employees on how they handle a very dangerous project. Additionally, this is usually reserved for older employees as they need to improve certain skill sets in order to perform their work more effectively.
If you’re interested in how other companies have successfully analyzed the skills gap for employees, Training Magazine offers some case studies. It highlights companies like KPMG, Deloitte Consulting, Verizon, and more. You will learn about the problems these companies were facing and how they solved their skills gap. Although your company’s situation may differ, it can be helpful to know what other companies are doing in terms of skills gap analysis.
For example, the Training Journal reports that KPMG has learned through a skills gap analysis that as new technologies continue to emerge and job needs
As new workers, they realize that the skills required to succeed tomorrow are not the same as the skills required to succeed today. Just as it once sought to base skills standards on past success, it now seeks to anticipate future standards and plan development proactively.
Why skill gap analysis for employees?
Skills gap analysis is an important process to take in order to determine what skills you currently have in your employee arsenal and what skills you need to acquire. By going through this step-by-step process, you will uncover skill weaknesses and strengths with your employees. Once you’ve identified areas that need improvement, with a learning management system provider, you can train and develop each valued team member. As a result, your employees will become more marketable, engaged, and more efficient at doing their jobs. And your company will improve the processes that make critical projects run smoothly with fewer unexpected problems.
You’re coming up with a new product launch, but does your existing team have the skills to get it done? Or do you need to hire different team members? Or do you need to add additional training to team members before starting this new project? These are just some of the many scenarios where a skills gap analysis for employees makes sense. Other examples might include changing job roles, requiring the employee to take on new responsibilities or shifts in skills required due to new company technologies. So, what exactly is a skill gap analysis? It can be defined as comparing the skills and knowledge needed to complete a task with the employee’s current skill level to meet the requirements of the task. After analyzing the gap between the two, team leaders can work with employees to develop a plan to bridge the skills gap.
Benefits of initiating skill gap analysis
Now that you know what a skill gap analysis for employees is, what are some of the benefits for managers and organizations?
Identifies employee weak spots
All people have a combination of strengths and weaknesses. While you may have a marketing department equipped with communication skills, one team member may be adept at writing and editing skills while another may excel at design skills. By conducting a skills gap analysis, you can identify where employees might need additional training to bring everyone up to the same skill level.
Offers professional development
If an employee feels they lack a particular skill, they may not always talk about the need for additional training. Or the employee may know or want additional training in certain skills and feel that their company does not provide such training. Hence he becomes indignant and even loses consciousness. Then he starts looking for a company that is more interested in his career path.
So it is important to conduct a skills gap analysis for employees. This will define a development plan tailored to each employee. It will show your employees that you value training and development. In addition, you want to equip each of your employees with the right skills to be successful.
Helps human resources
By conducting a skills gap analysis, it will help your HR department. Why? Because they will understand the skills required for a particular role. This helps HR write well-designed job descriptions which lead to better candidates and ultimately stronger new members of the team.
Path for promotion
Managers will also benefit from a skills gap analysis. Because it will show the skills required for each level within their team. If a senior or senior member leaves the company, it becomes clear what skills more junior team members will need in order to move into these senior positions.
Increased productivity
Perhaps the most important benefit of skill gap analysis is increased productivity. When you identify the skills needed in a training setting, your company will become better at managing time, planning work, and staying on project budgets more effectively. All these factors make the company stronger as a whole and better at achieving goals.
How do you begin the skill review process?
Skills gap analysis for employees is useful for any organization. That’s why it’s important to have a thorough review of the skills your employees have versus the skills needed. Here are some steps to take when conducting a skills gap analysis.
List company objectives
Before you begin the analysis, you will want to list the objectives of the company or department. Your goals will determine the skills you are looking to gain from your employees. In addition, it will help prioritize the skills most important to the company. It will be easier to plan your training and get employee engagement by identifying why a skills gap analysis is needed.
Skills needed
Once you’ve reviewed your goals, identify the skills needed to achieve them. This should be broken down by job role. In other words, what specific skills are needed for each job description within your company. You could say that communication in the workplace is one of the most important skills in your company. However, this may be vital to a role such as customer service, but perhaps not as important as learning how to use your new CRM database for your sales team members.
One way to simplify this step is to group similar job roles together. For example, although your marketing team may specialize in different roles on the team, writing is important to the entire team. So by grouping the job roles within your organization, it will help to identify your strengths
You want every department or team to have it.
Measure skills
Next, you’ll need to measure the skill level of your current employees with the skills you’ve identified as most important. One way to do this is to rate either on a numerical scale, from one to 10. One being an employee who doesn’t have much knowledge of the required skills and 10 being an employee who is really good at it. Or another way to measure is to use High, Medium, and Low to indicate how strong a person is at a particular skill.
Learn needed skills
Once you have identified the required skills, it is time to look at your current employees. You can take two different approaches. You choose to either train and develop your existing employees. Or looking to hire employees with the required skills you have identified.
Training of existing employees
With this option, you will not add the time and expense of recruiting new members. However, you will need to dedicate thought and energy into how you train your current employees. A great way to do this is to use a learning management system provider. They can draft training materials and shape a way to start corporate training. This provider can include blended learning, peer-to-peer learning, and the use of games in training to successfully motivate and develop your team.
Recruitment of new employees
If you choose to hire new team members, just remember what you learned during the skills gap analysis for future employees. This should include things like:
Drafting detailed job descriptions
Incorporate the necessary skills identified
Ask for examples during the interview process of how the candidate has demonstrated these skills in previous jobs.
Tips to measure effective skill gap analysis
Now that you know the process of skill gap analysis for employees, how can you ensure that your analysis is effective? There are a few techniques you can take that may help guide the process and lead to better results. Here are some ways you can measure the skills needed for your employees.
Using Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, provide measurable values that show how effective a company is in achieving key business objectives. However, KPIs can be applied to employees to judge how effective their job skills are in contributing to the company. For example, you can measure career path with the company, compensation, bonuses, benefits, and retention rates.
Once you compare employees with similar job roles, you’ll see trends. This will help you identify skill gaps with certain employees. Once identified, you can start correcting them with practice.
Assessments
Another way to help identify skill gaps is through assessments. Using the learning management system provider, they can prepare assessments with these tests. You will learn where to add skills to each employee and to an entire team. For example, you can measure topics such as sales enablement, performance management, and customer service.
Just remember to use realistic scenarios when asking questions. In this way, it is easy to judge the employee’s reaction in real time. In addition, this will give you a better overview of what skills you are lacking and can be corrected with additional training.
Observations
Nobody likes to feel like they’re being watched or as if they’re being micromanaged. But sometimes watching how employees react in a given situation will help you identify missing skills. Monitoring or feedback is a great way to identify skill gaps for employees because you can see firsthand what problems your team members are facing. Just make sure you explain to your employees that you don’t judge them. But you gather opinions on how to best support them in the job. In addition, you may notice behaviors or reactions that team members themselves don’t realize they’re doing. By explaining all of this to your employees, everyone receives positive feedback and necessary additional training.
Ranking and arranging employees
In order to compare apples to apples, rather than rank the skills required for each job, rank the best performing employees across all teams noting the skills that team members possess. Be sure to note not only work skills but also soft skills such as communication or leadership. This way you will have an indication of what skills and what level these skills need to be in order to complete a skills gap analysis for employees.
This process can also help when hiring new team members to see what the profile of candidates should look like. It can also be helpful with career advancement within your company. More junior members will model the skills needed to move up within the company.
Review process
Employee review time is another great way to collect feedback for skills analysis. Instead of a one-sided review, be sure to collect feedback from their direct reporting staff, their managers, and also from their team members. This will give you a better overview of each employee’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of skills. You may also consider external contacts such as customers or vendors if employees interact with them regularly.
It is also important to involve the employees themselves. This is an opportunity to talk openly and honestly about each employee’s career path, the skills each employee feels they need to enhance, and any obstacles to operating at their full potential.
Templates and case studies
Along with best practices for skill gap analysis for employees, it is helpful to have templates to work with. These models can be adapted to your specifications, but they provide a good starting point to build from.
And if you work in a specific field, such as the medical field, a
For specific business fields or sciences, you will need a more detailed model called a critical skills gap analysis. This is formed when management wants to monitor employees on how they handle a very dangerous project. Additionally, this is usually reserved for older employees as they need to improve certain skill sets in order to perform their work more effectively.
If you’re interested in how other companies have successfully analyzed the skills gap for employees, Training Magazine offers some case studies. It highlights companies like KPMG, Deloitte Consulting, Verizon, and more. You will learn about the problems these companies were facing and how they solved their skills gap. Although your company’s situation may differ, it can be helpful to know what other companies are doing in terms of skills gap analysis.
For example, the Training Journal reports that KPMG has learned through skills gap analysis that as new technologies and new business needs continue to emerge, it recognizes that the skills needed to succeed tomorrow are not the same as the skills needed to succeed today. Just as it once sought to base skills standards on past success, it now seeks to anticipate future standards and plan development proactively.
Why skill gap analysis for employees?
Skills gap analysis is an important process to take in order to determine what skills you currently have in your employee arsenal and what skills you need to acquire. By going through this step-by-step process, you will uncover skill weaknesses and strengths with your employees. Once you’ve identified areas that need improvement, with a learning management system provider, you can train and develop each valued team member. As a result, your employees will become more marketable, engaged, and more efficient at doing their jobs. And your company will improve the processes that make critical projects run smoothly with fewer unexpected problems.
