Skills Gap Analysis

Businesses and organizations are constantly evolving and changing. Demands in the market, internal workplace culture, hiring decisions, and industry trends are all things that contribute to a business’s evolution. In order to understand those changes and to stay on top of the needs of the business, perennial business assessments and analyses need to be made. 

One of the most effective ways to understand what your company needs from your workforce is through a skills gap analysis. Skills gap analyses are similar to competency gaps, learning gaps, and personality gaps, but they focus more on your employees and their individual/team capabilities in executing tasks and achieving goals. 

Below we’ll get into how you can perform, process, and understand a skills gap analysis for your organization. 

What is a Skills Gap Analysis

A skills gap analysis, as the name suggests, allows you to identify the gap between what your organization needs to execute projects, tasks, and strategies in relation to your workforce. A skills gap analysis helps you identify where you might need additional training and support, and it allows you to create a plan for addressing any existing gaps within your organization. 

Typical Skills Gap Analysis Process

A skills gap analysis process is a set of steps you can follow in assessing the skills and capabilities of your employees in relation to your organizational needs. You can utilize a skills gap analysis template to help simplify and quantify the process.

You can execute a successful skills gap analysis process with the following steps:

• Identify and define future goals. This should be aligned with trends you see in the industry, new business strategies and KPIs that you’d like to meet, and your long-term business goals. Once you have an understanding of where you’re headed, you can start looking at methods for cultivating a skill set to meet those goals.
• Before making any hiring decisions or implementing training, you need to measure your current workforce skills and determine areas of growth. In order to do this, you can initiate organizational-wide skills gap analysis processes through a skills gap analysis software. You can also opt to hire a third-party consultant who can conduct the analysis on your behalf. Once you’ve looked at the qualitative and quantitative efficacy of your current workforce, you can define accurate measurements and determine areas for growth. 
• Finally, you can implement a strategy to address your needs and the defined gaps. There are a few methods for closing that defined gap, and those methods include:
• Hiring talent to fill your needs
• Implementing training for existing employees to help them build the skills and requisites to meet your goals
• Make part-time or contractual hires to fill specified gaps that don’t require a long-term commitment
• Provide educational materials and resources to your managers/employees 
• Implement job redesign strategies that center on the company’s mission, goals, and newfound needs to achieve those goals

A properly conducted skills gap analysis can help you streamline growth, prepare for the future, and meet the growing demands of your present-day circumstances.

Why is a gap analysis so important?

The use and repeated use of skills gap analysis are important for providing you with a bird’s-eye view of where your company is at in relation to your goals, your future, and the changes of your industry. 

Skills gap analysis can help you:

• Understand your hiring needs 
• Hiring is costly (more than $4,000 per hire on average), and understanding exactly what you need and why you’re hiring a particular employee will save you time, money, and energy while making winning hires.

• Birds eye view of your organization
• Sometimes organizations need to step back and assess the field before they can move forward. Skills gap analyses are road maps – a way for your organization to identify where you are, where you’re headed, and what tools you need to get there.

• Understand growth potential with current staff
• It’s always a good idea to understand where your existing talent is at in terms of their skills, capabilities, and long-term potential. Skills gap assessments help you gain an understanding of what your current staff can offer you in the short and long-term, allowing you to make adjustments, implement training, and make new hires when necessary.

• Improve productivity with proactive strategies for skills gaps
• When you make data-driven hiring and strategic decisions with respect to your talent and needs, you can expect those decisions to help boost productivity. And when employees can work competently and effectively, they will often enter their roles with more confidence, engagement, and sense of self-efficacy.

• Stay ahead of trends and your competition
• Knowledge is power, and staying on top of future industry trends will allow you to have an edge over the competition. You can make strategic changes, hiring decisions, and internal organizational adjustments in preparation for future trends that you’ve identified. 

A skills gap analysis will give you the tools you need to understand your needs and cultivate lasting data-driven change. 

Crosschq Can Bridge Your Gap With Quality Hires

Crosschq’s proprietary technology will give you all the tools you need to reach top talent and fill the various skills and competency gaps within your organization. Crosschq 360 streamlines your reference checking process, giving you the information you need to create a rounded, data-informed understanding of the candidates in your talent pool. 

Take advantage of 360 digital references, recruit talent sourcing, and advanced recruitment analytics to make not only fast hires, but diverse, winning teams. Try Crosschq’s free demo today.