Identify Skill Gaps so You Can Get Working on Upskilling Your Employees

The quest to identify skill gaps among workers is a constant endeavor with no end date, but that’s what it means to grow a workforce. Employees are hired with an armory of skill sets that match what an organization is looking for, but as the role evolves, the employee is expected to grow as well. This is easier to do in some roles, where the work done introduces the necessary skills to the employee, but in most cases, additional training is required to help the employee improve. 

Investing in upskilling programs is in the employees’ and organization’s best interests, but before you start investing in an assortment of programs, it’s important to conduct a skill gap analysis first. Knowing the skills you need to target is the first step to building any program around the employees.

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Get a Headstart of Identifying Skill Gaps Within Your Organization

Most companies can benefit from generic upskilling programs regardless of whether that’s a core quality required in their employees. A few topics like leadership or conflict resolution are ones that all employees regularly require refresher courses on just to get them back up to speed. Such upskilling programs are beneficial to conduct on a regular basis but they don’t necessarily help identify the skill gap within the workforce and what they specifically need to improve in their jobs.

Workplace skill gaps are always bad news for any organization as they mean employees are not operating to their full potential to meet the company goals. Even if they have a strong knowledge base concerning their industry, they need to be able to apply it effectively and translate it into results. 

According to a survey by Springboard, 70 percent of corporate leaders feel that there is a critical skill gap within their organizations. Strategic thinking, problem-solving, communication, adaptability, and emotional intelligence were identified as the primary soft skills that leaders felt their organizations needed. Junior employees agreed that these were the top skills they wanted to sharpen, with the addition of leadership skills and time management to replace the last two that leaders cited. 

The skill gaps were also reported as a gap in the technical knowledge of employees, which means that the problem is more complex than something a single training program can solve. Springboard also reported that nearly 40 percent of leaders felt the workforce skill gaps were getting worse, which is a worrying trend that will only happen. 

Is It Better to Rehire Instead of Addressing the Workplace Skill Gaps?

With around 42 percent of leaders predicting a maximum 3-5 year shelf life for technical skills, an organization either has to rehire for a role within that period in hopes they find an employee who is more skilled or they have to provide additional training to help employees update their knowledge.

Rehiring might sound like a viable solution, but employers also have to realize that it is not as easy to find employees who match the exact expectations of the organization. Evolution in each industry has been outpacing the speed with which education systems evolve, and by the time an employee is hired, their skills—both technical and soft skills—might already be behind the industry standards. 

Older workers who have considerable knowledge and experience serve as a great asset to any organization they join, but hiring teams skip over them in search of candidates with the most up-to-date skills. As a result, organizations struggle to hire because such rare candidates remain in high demand, and more experienced workers struggle to find work. Rehiring can be part of the solution when the employee skills assessments reveal the gap is too wide to be bridged by training, but upskilling programs offer a much better solution.

An investment in the employees and their skills also boosts the employees’ faith in the organization in return, which is a nice additional bonus to addressing any existing workplace skill gaps.

How to Identify Skill Gaps In Your Organization?

In order to uncover workplace skill gaps and determine what upskilling programs to prioritize, you need to understand your workforce well. Rolling out a general program across the organization might accidentally land on a few correct targets, but more pressing concerns could go undetected. 

Company-wide employee skills assessments are a core part of the strategy to fill in holes within the organization but that isn’t the only way to determine what your company needs. Let’s take a look at how to identify skill gaps within your workforce.

Study Industry Trends

Following a trend without research is never a good idea, but you can benefit from knowing what competitors are prioritizing. Study the shifts in the industry to get a sense of emerging skills or areas of knowledge and proficiency that you might want to build within your company. Look at job postings and talk to recruiters to understand what some popular skills are and how they are being translated into work within the organization.

Don’t begin investing in training your employees on those skills immediately because that may not be what your organization needs. The upskilling programs will only come in later after you get a look at the full picture.

Identify The Company’s Goals and Priorities 

To determine what your workforce is missing, you should have a clear picture of what your company needs. Refer to the organization’s quarterly and yearly goals as well as the key deliverables expected from every team. 

Reviewing the company’s performance in meeting its targets over the previous months can also be insightful, pointing out where errors are occurring more often than not. Some of these issues might require infrastructural changes rather than any upgrading of employee skill sets, so be sure to separate those problems and ensure that the gaps identified are not unfairly reflected on the employees. 

Consider Both Soft Skills and Technical Skills

Create a detailed profile of all the technical skills and soft skills that employees are expected to possess to get the job done. As tempting as it can be to include only technical skills like data analysis or machine learning, soft skills are just as integral to a well-functioning organization. Employees who don’t bother working with their teams or can’t adapt to changing programs can really slow the work down.

Conduct Employee Skill Assessments

It is unfair to change key performance indicators suddenly and move the benchmark without informing the employees. An employee assessment should be conducted fairly, evaluating the employee performance based on the performance that has been expected of them so far. The data collected from the company assessment can serve as an additional goal post of where employees need to be in the upcoming months. 

Regular employee skill assessments are commonplace in most organizations but these should not be treated passively. When data is collected about employees, it should be fed back into the system to prompt the next step in their performance improvement plans. A range of competencies can be tested and the employees’ work can be evaluated in tandem with feedback from those who work with the employee. Various methods can be used such as 360-degree feedback tests, DISC assessments, and other testing metrics developed internally. 

Evaluate the Results of the Employee Skill Assessment 

Assessments lead to an overwhelming amount of information sometimes, and these reserves are often left unattended barring a few details discussed during the review. A specific team should be tasked with combing through the results to understand how employees match up to the specific expectations of the organization and its top goals. 

Most employees will have the target skills but their proficiency levels will vary, making a performance improvement plan necessary to address their weaknesses. If the skill gap is minimal, it can be addressed by discussing strategies with the employee on what they need to improve in those areas.

Large trends in skill gaps that are identified within the workplace need to be addressed through upskilling programs. These employees can be supported by training programs, assistance from coworkers, or extra time with their mentors to improve their performance in the gaps identified.

Schedule a Discussion with the Employees

Employees might have a lot of insight into their own limitations and what is required to improve performance. A problem that looks like a lack of understanding of their assignments from the outside might be a result of zero communication between teams. The communication issues will need to take priority before you make any other changes. Talk to employees about the results of the assessment and explore their thoughts and experiences as well.

Conduct Upskilling Programs 

Workplace skill gaps that are detected should be addressed via training programs. Dedicated programs should be created internally or external experts can be hired to train the employees. These programs should be built on the results of the assessment to ensure they address the needs of the target audience. Instead of rolling the program out to all the employees at once, those who need the upskilling the most can serve as the first group to take the training. Future iterations of the program can be built on their feedback. 

Extra Tip for Identifying Skill Gaps: Don’t Prioritize AI over More Immediate Concerns

A recent report showed that college education systems were doing a better job of preparing graduates for the workforce, but the graduates still felt underprepared for AI. This might add to the pressing fear of falling behind in the AI game, but unless your organization has already implemented AI in some critical way, all employees don’t have to be experts on the subject.

Consider your company priorities first and ensure the skills gap analysis accurately builds on the goals of the organization. If you do want to begin incorporating AI, hire a few experts, or assign a team to work on how to establish and embrace AI. They can determine which employees need to be trained on it first. While that is in progress, continue to work on other workplace skill gaps that require attention.

Conducting a skills gap analysis is useful for every organization to keep moving forward no matter how big or small it is, and it is always better to focus on retaining employees rather than evaluating how to keep hiring for roles continuously. 

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