Table of Contents
A shortfall in attaining a set target or lack of performance due to a deficit in skills required for the workplace is termed a skill gap. A sufficient gap between an employee’s ideal performance viz the actual performance can also be addressed as a skill gap.
Any company’s short-term goal is to diminish the effect of this skill gap on business metrics via rigorous training and development. But the long-term goal targets to address these skill gaps by focusing on the root cause of it and preventing this competency gap from germinating again.
Ways To Conduct A Skills Gap Analysis
-
A clear perspective of company strategy: Having a clear perspective of your company goals will provide you with an idea of what kind of role or skill your employee needs to play or develop for a project.
- Skill inventory required for each role: Develop a list of skills required for a specific role. You can either choose to do this work on your own or use job listings for the purpose. Many recruitment organizations perform a comparative study on several organizations and design a set of skills for specific roles termed a skill inventory. Once you have the list, divide it into two parts based on skill type and level of mastery. This would lead to a more manageable understanding of any role.
- Existing skill inventory: Do a detailed assessment of the skill sets of your existing employees. Go through employee reviews, identify their skills based on feedback provided by managers and co-workers, and supervise the work of employees.
- Analyze the skill gap and act on the data: Once the analysis is done, it is time to act on the data collected. And the only two ways of doing that are hiring and training.
Choose any one or both based on your company’s requirements.
-
- Train to mitigate skill gap: Several organizations use training to reduce the gap between desired and actual skill sets. They train employees and teach them new skills to be productive in the next project. There are several tools like Adobe Connect training software that allow organizations to host live virtual training sessions, workshops, and seminars for remote staff.
- Hiring to fill skill gaps: In case of training is not sufficient to fill the gap between desired and actual skill sets, hiring is the key to achieving that. Steps involved:
-
- Screening test for the skills your company requires. Take skills assessment tests like seek written samples or ask to appear for a company-approved reasoning test.
- Structured interviews are key to reducing biases and ensuring the selection of promising talents.
- Often candidates with the desired skills are not looking for jobs at that very moment. In that case, use sourcing techniques to approach top talents.
