As some jobs disappear, some change, business needs evolve, and good talent becomes more difficult to find, obtain, and retain, focusing on skill gaps and internal mobility is only becoming more crucial to the success of organizations around the world.
Continual learning and upskilling is essential not only for the individual, but for the workforce at large. This is where analyzing skills gaps is essential. While it can seem like a large undertaking, once you have a process set up (along with some tools to help automate some of the process), finding gaps in career skills and helping staff upskill or fill gaps in teams becomes easy.
What is a skills gap analysis?
A skills gap analysis is a tool that helps organizations identify opportunities for training and internal mobility among staff and teams. It looks at where an individual, team, or organization is currently versus where you want or need to be in the future.
From a high level, this means looking at the skills missing throughout the organization currently, versus skills that will drive future success. From an individual level, it’s about identifying gaps in skills or skills that are untapped and how these align with your organization’s strategic objectives and priorities.
How to identify skills gaps
Conducting a data-driven skills gaps analysis requires a specific process to ensure it is streamlined, consistent, and easily repeatable.
- Review strategic goals and objectives: Start from the top and think about what your organization is moving towards. Understanding this can help identify the skills needed to get there.
- Identify current skills of your workforce: Map the skills of your teams and individuals to see what the makeup of your workforce is currently.
- Assess and identify future skills: Now is the time to find those gaps. Test and rate skill levels and analyze this to find where individuals and teams can develop skills or learn new skills and close gaps.
- Create a way to close the gaps: Once you know the skills that are missing or need improving, the next step is to design a way to close them through training, development, internal mobility, or new talent.
- Repeat!: Businesses change and evolve all the time. It’s important to look for skills gaps regularly to see where staff can grow, learn, and evolve with changing industries and business needs.
We have a great checklist and timeline that goes into this process in further detail here.
The benefits of skills gaps analysis
There are lots of reasons why analyzing skills gaps is important. Not only does it help organizations understand how to build better workforces, but it also helps retain staff, reduce hiring and training costs, and increase overall profits. By identifying skills gaps and opportunities to upskill, you can create higher performing teams who are happier and more productive. This also means better internal mobility and more strategic recruitment in the future.
The best way to understand and fill skills gaps is by becoming a skills based organization. While it can seem overwhelming, if set up right, it can become a streamlined process with huge rewards. Enlisting the help of skills management software can help streamline this process further, so if you want to start acting on your skill gaps, book in a time to talk to the Skills Base team today!
