Organizations utilize skill gap analysis as a technique to assess the disparity between the abilities currently held by employees and those that are now required.
The HR examines the skill gaps of the employees in order to assess their performance and determine the areas where they are weak in knowledge. The authority then strives to close these gaps by offering necessary skill training programs, L&D investment choices, succession planning, and so on.
Why is skill gap analysis necessary?
According to a 2018 World Economic Forum report, at least 54% of workers will need to upgrade their skills or replace existing abilities as a result of the rapid pace of technological improvements. In the worlds of automation and AI, a lot is happening. Technology will soon replace workers in large numbers. In such circumstances, the person who maintains himself up to date and improves his skills in accordance with the current trends has a better chance of winning the race.
The following part will go over the key justifications for why your company should conduct skill gap analyses frequently:
The notion of a workforce depends on how many employees need to acquire the necessary job hr skills to complete work in the firm, you may arrange your training programs and courses accordingly.
Encourage growth and learning
Employees are inspired to acquire new skills and build their portfolios when you identify the skills required throughout the organization and discover they lack some of them.
Improved recruiting
Knowing the talents you need automatically improves the quality of your hiring process. You will hire those people who already possess certain skill sets and will be more successful at the assigned responsibilities.
Advantage over rivals
You immediately remain ahead of your competition and gain an edge when you have the necessary skills on hand and can plan your workforce strategy for the future.
How can skill gap analysis be done?
Preparing for the analysis
You must first restrict your search before beginning the analysis. Decide what you want to accomplish and with whom you want to communicate. An investigation of skill gaps is often conducted on two levels: the individual level and the team level. You will need to consult the team leaders around the company for the latter.
Determine the abilities you need and the ones that are lacking in the various departments.
Set a purpose.
Set benchmarks and goals for yourself if you want to grow consistently. You need to be aware of the direction your business is taking and whether an employee possesses the necessary skills.
You could inquire about:
- What are the organization’s objectives for the following five years?
- Do we have the necessary aptitude to get there?
- Which industries’ business sectors lack the necessary skills?
- What abilities must employees possess in order to connect themselves with the objectives of the company?
- Work patterns for the future
The operations of your businesses must follow current trends. It will be advantageous to adopt new technologies as they emerge because so many are on the horizon. You can inquire as follows in order to learn the solutions:
- What kinds of occupations are automatable?
- What competencies are in demand right now?
- What positions will the company require in the future?
- You can research online where numerous articles illustrate the future of automation and algorithms to learn about the present and future trends in business sectors.
- Define your future-ready skills.
Organizations frequently struggle to stay current with trends in technology and periodically upskill their personnel.
Employers can identify these skill gaps in their staff members using skill gap analysis, and then train them in the updated skills. You can prepare your employees for the future in this way.
Evaluate your abilities now
Determine how each person contributes to the job that the organization accomplishes by evaluating their KPIs. Set up surveys and evaluations with the staff so they can be honest about their strengths and weaknesses.
Ask the staff members about their performance and skill gaps, or ask the team leads to go into more detail about the team’s overall skill contribution to the ongoing projects.
Identify the gaps
The results phase will be this. You will learn where the staff members are deficient and which department requires greater attention for their work. Examples of the skill gap include:
Among the sales executive staff, 35% are unable to keep up with the new software that has been implemented.
48% of customer service executives are in need of soft skill development programs due to their poor communication abilities.
The team needs to get their hands on the technologies that will be used because by the following year, database administration will be highly automated.
Utilize the outcomes
It is now time for you to implement the recommendations from the skill gap analysis. You have the option of doing the following:
- You have the option of doing the training yourself or hiring a specialist to do it for you.
- As long as demand is minimal, you can offer weekly workshops and courses to the staff.
- Additionally, you can run staff mentoring programs and share information and skills.
- Invite staff to conferences and seminars so they can learn about the requirements and trends being discussed.
- Use skill assessments during the hiring process to weed out applicants who aren’t a good fit for your business.
- If your skill gap is too wide, think about hiring only skilled workers who can help you quickly bridge your gaps.