Everything You Need to Know About Skills GAP Analysis

Skills GAP analysis is related to GAP analysis. It shares the same common factor of “closing the gap” between A and B. In the case of skills GAP analysis:

• “A” equals a job or task to be completed, and
• “B” equals the skills necessary to complete that task.

A simple way to understand the analysis

The easiest way to think about skills GAP analysis is when hiring a new employee or subcontractor.

You’re hiring someone to fulfill a specific role in your company (the job/task). The person you hire will have the appropriate skills to handle the task (skills necessary). If the company objectives switch or the person’s skills aren’t enough, then the job ends or the employee is fired.

What you need to have in order to conduct a complete skills GAP analysis is…

• A defined business goal or plan and,
• A list of the skills needed for successful results

How to start your skills GAP analysis

Specifically, it’s best to design a plan with business goals, objectives, expenses, and the ideal person to carry it out. This person may need to be hired, but they also might already be a part of your team — you just need to weed out which person is best to complete the goal.

While you could list off the required skills, it’s best to get it from data. If the business goal is related to sales or marketing, your competitors may have followed a similar campaign. With the right tools, you can research their results and identify which skills brought them to their goal.

Or if this new goal is similar to an old one, look at which team members worked towards that goal. Their skills will be closely linked to what you need.

Another thing you can do is collect data through surveys. If your goal is related to customer experience, having existing customers answer your questions may help round out the bigger picture.

Keep all this information in a spreadsheet. The columns will be broken down into objectives, goals, results of goals, and skills necessary.

What next?

With the data collected, it’s time to translate it. Which means, identifying the skills the job needs.

So, your goal may require a dedicated team manager, or perhaps you’re dealing with new technology which will require the company to explain complex concepts into simplistic terms.

Because you collected data from various sources, you know what gaps you’re lacking. And by proxy, you understand which skills you’re looking for. Now it’s clearer which direction to use to complete your company goal.

You may need to hire new people, but you may also be able to provide training for existing team members.

While training can be expensive in the short term, if similar projects arise in the following months, your team will have the necessary skills to complete it. This will save money from having to hire new people each time.

The bottom line is, skills GAP analysis will help you identify skills required for a goal to be met and make a plan to decide how to get these skills in the most defined method.

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