How a Skills Gap Can Destroy Your Business

Employers tend to complain a lot that they can’t find the right person for the job, even if they receive a dozen fresh resumes every day. The reason why they are refusing to hire any of the applicants is that those potential employees do not meet employers’ expectations, or, in other words, there is a skills gap.

“Skill gap” is a term that describes the difference between the skills needed for a particular job, as demonstrated by the job ad, and the skills a potential employee can actually offer. A skills gap is often the reason why a worker cannot perform the complete job. But how do you know which skills they lack exactly? 

To figure that out, you may want to consider conducting a skill gap analysis (SGA). For employers and HR managers, this analysis is a great method to gauge the current skill levels and knowledge within the organization. An SGA helps identify the skills that are lacking but are needed to meet your future business goals.

Benefits of Skill Gap Analysis

A skill gap analysis points out the essential skills employees possess or need to possess in order to successfully complete their tasks. This process also boosts your workers’ individual learning and development, as well as increases your workforce’s overall productivity and performance.

An SGA ensures that your employees are skillful, well-trained, and able to their job properly. In addition, you get a clear picture of the candidate you need to hire, which allows you to look for applicants with a certain set of skills. This will save your money and your HR managers’ time.

If you’re wondering which spheres a skills gap affects the most – well, there doesn’t seem to be much consistency: the roles vary from UX-designers to nurses, from teachers to engineers, and from sales executives to HR officers. 

How to Conduct a Skills Gap Analysis

In case you haven’t done this before, we have prepared a guide on how to conduct an SGA. This is just a template, so feel free to add extra steps based on your business needs.

1. Make a Plan

Try performing an SGA on two levels:

• Individual level. Compare the skills a worker possesses to the skills the job actually requires.
• Organizational level. Try to figure out whether your employees are able to work on a project or if you need to hire another person. 

You may ask your HRs to hold a meeting with managers and/or the staff and explain the process to them, as well as why it is important and how it can change things in the future. By the way, hiring a third-party expert may be a great idea since they will have unbiased, more objective opinions.

2. Identify the Essential Skills

As we’ve mentioned above, some employers are having trouble finding the right employee for their job. However, others believe that the skills gap is nothing but the result of expectations being too high. To find out what types of skills are beneficial to your company, ask yourself:

• What skills do you value in your organization?
• What skills do your workers need to do their job well?

Think about your company culture and which skills your team may need in the future. Look through your job descriptions to see whether they reflect your organization’s needs and values. Consider creating a survey among your employees on what skills they think they might be lacking.

3. Evaluate Existing Skills

To assess your employees’ skill levels, you could use:

• Polls and evaluations
• Interviews with your staff
• Feedback from performance reviews

4. Act on the Data

After you’ve conducted the skill gap analysis, think about how you could fill these gaps. Typically, there are two tactics – self-development and external recruitment. Depending on your particular situation, needs, and values, you should choose which approach would suit your business better.

To provide additional training and learning opportunities to your employees, you could:

• Arrange seminars
• Offer different online courses and provide educational material
• Invite them to conferences and events

If you choose to fill your organization’s skill gap by hiring new people, keep in mind that you or your HR professionals also need to change the way you search, find and select candidates throughout the entire hiring process. Consider:

• Modifying your hiring process to look for skills your organization actually needs. For instance, you can add skills assessments (like writing samples) and numerical reasoning tests.
• Conducting well-structured interviews to reduce biases and ensure your criteria for choosing a new hire are strictly job-related.
• Looking for passive candidates. Workers with good skill levels are usually not looking for a job, as they are probably much appreciated in their current position. Try using effective sourcing techniques, check your talent pool to find and contact promising candidates.

Conducting a skills gap analysis can certainly be time-consuming. But the results are worth it. Knowing which skills you need to grow as a business will help you hire – and retain – the right people.

Assess Skill Gaps With Lanteria

Business development is impossible without regular assessment and evaluation of your existing workforce, their skills, skill levels, and knowledge. As an employer, you are supposed to keep track of all the major changes within your company and make effective decisions when needed.

That being said, when a skills gap becomes more and more obvious, and your workers don’t seem to be qualified enough for the position they are holding, it makes sense to conduct a skill gap analysis.

This process may well be conducted by the employer himself if the team isn’t too big. However, when it comes to evaluating the results of the analysis and acting on the data, no one will do it better than a professional hiring manager or hiring platform.

Lanteria can help you conduct the SGA by gathering and analyzing your workers’ feedback, aligning their visions with the goals of your company, as well as providing review forms for employees. Thus, your team’s performance will significantly increase, taking your business to new heights.