Skills Gap Analysis

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant and he got it. The pay was really good and so was the work condition. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.

His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he supposed to work.

The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees.

“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”

Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.

“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.

“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.

“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”

According to the story above, many companies focus on maximizing employee output and forget to sharpen them.

Skills Gap Analysis can help employers sharpen their employees.

A skills gap is the difference between skills that employers want or need, and skills their workforce offer. Conducting a skills gap analysis helps you identify skills you need to meet your business goals and you can also inform your employee development and hiring programs.

Here’s how to conduct a skills gap analysis:

Step 1: Plan

You can perform a skills gap analysis on two levels:

• Individual: You can identify the skills a job requires and compare them to an employee’s actual skill level.
• Team/company: You can determine if your employees have the skills to work on an upcoming project or if you need to hire externally. This analysis can help you target your employee training programs?to develop the skills you need.

HR can initiate team and company-wide skills gap analyses by holding a meeting with managers to explain the process. It can also be a good idea to hire an external consultant to conduct a skills gap analysis. Hiring an outside evaluator can make the process more objective and will free up staff time to focus on other relevant work.

Step 2: Identify important skills

Identify the skills you need by answering two questions:

• What skills do we value as a company?
• What skills do our employees need to do their jobs well now and in the future?

Consider your company’s job descriptions, business objectives and company?values. Think of the new skills your company might need in coming years. You could also survey team members on what skills they think are missing. Their insights could prove invaluable and involving your employees can help them feel that they’re contributing to your?company’s growth.

Step 3: Measure current skills

To measure skill levels, you could use:

• Surveys and assessments.
• Interviews with employees.
• Feedback from performance reviews.
• Skills management software, like Skills DB Pro and TrackStar?that can make a skills gap analysis much less time-consuming.

Alternatively, you can measure skills by creating a skills spreadsheet specific to each?individual position.

Step 4: Act on the data

There are two ways to fill skills gaps: training and hiring. Decide which approach (or combination) works best for each skill gap.

If we don’t take the time to sharpen the “axe”, we will become dull and lose our effectiveness.

#skillgap

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Source of Information: workable