Getting Started: Identifying the Skills Gap

Building from within––where do you start? The first step is to diagnose your internal capability shortages through skill or workforce assessments.

What is a Skills Assessment?

In lay terms, a skills assessment is simply an evaluation of an individual’s capability to perform a specific skill or set of skills that are particular to a specific job or role.

In short, it objectively measures what an individual can do and has no bearing on how a skill was learnt or acquired––it objectively balances those strong in education and those rich in experience.

Diagnosing internal capability shortages through a skills assessment will allow an organisation to effectively monitor and determine the level of proficiency within their workplace––identifying which individuals are new to a skill and those who have mastered it.

Information gleaned in the assessment can help you ensure that your people have the right competencies to succeed in their positions. It will also identify opportunities for training, development and better collaboration across departments.

By highlighting skills shortages, you can train current employees in areas where you lack competency or invest in micro-training to boost internal learning and upskilling.

Conducting a Skills and Workforce Assessment

The best way to initiate a skills/workforce assessment is to hold a meeting with managers to explain the process. Hiring an outside evaluator can make the process more comfortable and objective, and it will free up your staff to continue their critical work.

Next, decide on the skills you value as a company, both for the present and future. As you brainstorm, consider your past job descriptions, business objectives and company values. Also, think about the skills you’ll require in the coming years. You might want to survey team members about skills they feel are missing from the current workforce. Their insights could prove invaluable, and involving your staff helps them feel ownership in the company’s growth.

Managers can use the following measures to highlight results:

• Surveys

• Assessments

• Interviews

• Performance reviews.

Benefits of a Skills Assessment

Building a strong and resilient workforce requires keeping staff, individually and team-based, up to the minute, productive and involved. As a tool that objectively assesses an individual's proficiency, a skills assessment brings several benefits:

Reduce Bias

Intrinsic bias, to this day, still happens, subconsciously or otherwise. Whether it be related to age, gender, education, or any other factor, it takes away from the real focus––skills, and can potentially influence the hiring process. A skills assessment gives weight where it's due––to the skills at hand and their suitability for a role rather than the former.

Increase Employee Engagement

If you want employees to stay, you need to keep them engaged through support and recognition of their progress. As Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company, once said, "The only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay." 

How do they progress? Skills assessments lead to employee growth and new skill sets, ultimately making them more vital.

Achieve Consistency

When asked about a particular skill, an individual may view their capability as a "5" on a 5-point scale. Similarly, another may report theirs as being a "3" on the same scale, even if their skill level is relatively similar. Human guesswork often results in a disparity that can affect workflow performance. A skills assessment effectively offers an objective measure to assess capability.

Measure Development

Engaging in a regular skills assessment can monitor the progression of staff development and effectively identify areas where additional training or support is required. If an evaluation shows that only a handful of individuals are falling behind, training and supporting them one-on-one may be enough to get them up to speed. Conversely, group training may be a better alternative if it is the whole team.

Engage in Development Planning

Make it positive, practical and relevant. A skills assessment can identify where an individual needs to develop their capability. It can also specify their need to learn conjoining or even new skill sets. Once identified, management can implement a personalised development plan to effectively utilise current staff to their full potential whilst addressing the possibility of a talent gap within the organisation.

How to Implement the Findings of Your Skills Gap Assessment

Once you gather information from your surveys, inspections, interviews and performance reviews, it's time to fill the gaps––a framework to uplift the capability of your organisation can be put into action.