Change is essential to an organisation’s existence and survival. A significant amount of this change centres around additions, replacements or internal promotion of employees.
Anytime an employee is considered for a new role, questions like how well they will fit into the role and the possible gains for the organisation always come up.
While much of the answers are found in the employee’s natural skills, some organisations take the approach of the Peter Principle – where successful employees get promotion opportunities beyond their areas of expertise until they find themselves in a role that becomes their undoing.
But a new role fit should not depend on a previous role’s performance. Unfortunately, many business leaders and managers make mistakes in promoting employees solely on previously successful attributes.
While you may have in-depth performance data on the employee, a new position may require vital skills that are entirely different from those the employee currently possesses.
As such, assessing your employee for the right skills can provide an incredibly informative pulse on their capacity to handle the new responsibilities. In addition, deploying assessments when considering these critical decisions ensure that the right employees’ attributes align effectively with the demands and expectations of the role.
As the scope of business changes due to the introduction of new technologies and techniques, businesses and teams must ensure they stay in tune with the pace. The question then becomes how?
How do you determine the level of skills your employees have to keep up with the pace of business change and remain relevant when scaling roles?
One way to do this is by conducting a skill gap analysis.
Recommended Post: Why You Should Consider Employee Competency Audit
What Is the Skills Gap Analysis?
According to a report by the World Economic Forum, roughly 40% of the global workforce will need to reskill or upskill by 2024 to scale their careers.
By definition, the skill gap is the difference in your employee’s skills and what they require for the role you plan to move them to. At its core, a successful skill gap analysis identifies those skills that your employee needs to function effectively in the new position.
It also helps determine whether upskilling and reskilling can bridge such skill gaps. From the analysis, you can tell where skill development will have the highest impact on your organisation.
A practical skill gap analysis will help ensure you’re focusing on the business opportunities that can help you solve the challenges of today’s workforce while setting the right priorities. At the same time, it will help ensure that you become consistent in viewing your business from a skill lens perspective
Applying Skill Gap Analysis to Identify the Right Skills for Promotion
Generally, any organisation will benefit from a skill gap analysis of its employees when considering promotion because it is vital to sustain organisational success.
It is critical to thoroughly review existing skills to measure their capacity to perform in the new role. Here are the steps you should take in deploying the skill gap analysis for promotion;
List Role Objectives
Before you deploy your analysis, you want to list out the objectives of the role your employee looks to attain. By listing out the objectives, you can decide which skills to look out for and prioritise those that are most important to the organisation.
List Out the Skills Needed for the Rol
After reviewing your objectives, you want to identify the specific skills employees will need to achieve them. For example, communication is a top skill that is important across the organisation. However, it is especially vital when promoting to customer service roles and not as important as how your sales team need to learn how to use a CRM database.
Also, the skills set required to meet the objectives of the CHRO position will markedly differ from those required to meet those of the CFO function.
Measure Employee's Existing Skills
The next step is to measure the current skill level of your employee against those you have earlier listed as most important for the new role. Again, knowing their existing skills, you’ll be able to determine the ‘distance’ to the required ones and plan to make the decision on whether to promote them.
Here’s how to go about measuring employees’ skills…
One approach to achieve this is to administer assessments. Assessments allow for evaluation from various perspectives. It also allows for objectivity and can measure specific competencies.
At Workforce Resourcing, we deploy a wide range of assessments to evaluate skill gaps across different functions such as sales, marketing, HR, finance, etc.
Act on the data
By identifying the skill gaps, you can decide which employees are most equipped with the right skills, and ready to be promoted immediately. Your analysis will also identify employees who have the potential to be successful but will require additional training or whether you’ll need to make a hiring decision to fill the position in question.
The Skills Gap Analysis Template
| Skills | Current State | Gap | Desired State | Initiatives |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Risk assessment |
5 |
2 |
7 |
your text here |
|
Innovation Management |
3 |
6 |
9 |
your text here |
|
Work on process skills |
6 |
1 |
7 |
your text here |
5 Benefits of Using Skill Gap Analysis for Employee Promotion
Organisations benefit from identifying skill gaps because it guarantees that their employees are well-trained and better equipped to meet the objectives of assigned roles. Five other benefits of applying the skills gap analysis for promotion are;
1. To support organisational agility
When you understand your employees’ skills, you’ll be able to determine what positions will be most effective and redistribute them accordingly as need demands.
2. To provide quantitative data on skills
By objectively quantifying your employee’s skills, you eliminate the risk of conscious or unconscious bias. This ensures that only the best fit employees are considered for promotion.
3. Align business and learning strategies
As a leader, when you have information on the skills employees require to attain promotions, you can create clear plans to help them improve these skills and ensure they’re tailored towards the overall organisational strategies.
4. To increase competitive advantage
By ensuring that only your best hands are promoted to key positions, your business is better placed to sustain its position as the organisation of choice.
5. Improves employee retention
A LinkedIn report from 2019 showed that 94% of employees would remain in an organisation that invests in and provide platforms for their career growth. The skills gap analysis enables you to confidently make this investment through training and career promotions.
The skill gap analysis is essential for assessing an organisation’s hiring needs. But, it can similarly be deployed to identify which employees have the right skills and are best suited to scale their careers and be in line for promotion.
We Can Help You Identify Employees With the Right Skills
At Workforce Resourcing, we are invested in finding the right people with the right skills to fit your roles. We deploy a variety of assessments to identify which of your employees are best equipped for promotion to sustain your business success.
We can leverage our assessment and development centre to ensure your critical positions are filled by the best hands.
Schedule a consultation with us to get started.
Akindele Afolabi
Director, Workforce Resourcing