What is a skill gap? How to identify and close the capacity gap

1. What is the skill gap?

Skill gap refers to a state when an employee does not possess the necessary skills to achieve a particular goal, thereby hindering the success of a project or job. enterprise. Simply put, this concept describes a situation when an employee is unable to respond to a request from leadership due to a lack of appropriate knowledge, skills, or competencies.

2. Why is Skill gap analysis necessary?

Skills gap analysis can provide a multitude of important benefits in advancing a company's goals through the learning and development process. Here are a few reasons why skills gap analysis can become more helpful:

• Understand the human resources situation in the business: Skills gap analysis allows businesses to better see the distribution of capabilities throughout the organization - from departments and groups to individual employees. This helps businesses identify where there is a skills gap (and where additional resources may be needed) at every level.
• Long – term HR planning: A key skills gap analysis can help you identify needed changes in recruiting methods or goals to meet future workforce needs. This helps you plan your workforce efficiently and respond to organizational growth.
• Promote learning and personal growth: Skills gap analysis can help uncover new personal development and learning goals, helping employees identify additional skills needed for the job. present and outstanding skills to go further in the future.
• Increase Work Productivity: One of the most important parts of skills gap analysis is taking action, i.e. you hope to address the skills gaps that exist and increase productivity in your workforce . By focusing on addressing weaknesses and improving skills, you can achieve higher performance and optimize employee contribution.
• Create a competitive advantage: Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your workforce helps you create a competitive advantage in the marketplace. By knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your workforce, you can find ways to address those weaknesses and stay ahead of your competitors.

3. How to determine the Skill gap at the business

To determine the Skill gap at your business, you can follow these 5 steps:

• Clearly define the goals and objectives that your company wants to achieve.
• Consider the skills employees need to possess to achieve those goals
• Clearly define which jobs within the organization will be directly responsible for achieving each goal. For example, salespeople need higher customer service skills than IT departments.
• Evaluate the skills your current employees already possess
• Compare the fit between your employees' current skills and the skills they need to accomplish your company's goals and objectives.

In addition, businesses can use the Skill matrix. Skill matrix is ​​an important tool in human resource management, used to analyze and evaluate in detail the skills and qualifications of employees in a team or project. This matrix is ​​presented as a table containing information related to each employee's knowledge and skills. Skill matrix is ​​also an effective tool for human resource managers, helping them to collect and analyze the information needed to manage, develop and evaluate employees' capabilities.

Skills matrix also plays an important role in assessing an employee's ability in a particular job. The information in the table will be presented in a scientific and logical manner to help businesses identify the missing skills, thereby orienting their workgroup or company more accurately.

Typically, an overview of the basic skills matrix includes information about the employee, the skills required, the skills the employee currently possesses, and the skills that need to be developed.

The use of Skill matrix will bring businesses benefits such as:

• Selecting the right people: Skill matrix helps managers clearly identify the strengths and weaknesses of each employee, thereby selecting the ones that best fit the project or company's criteria.
• Identify missing skills: The process of building a Skill matrix requires managers and employees to have a deeper look at each person's skills, thereby identifying weaknesses and missing skills of the team and department. and the company. In addition, the Skill matrix also helps to create a comprehensive picture of employee capabilities, helping managers see possible risks during the project process.
• Improve work performance: When employees are well aware of their capabilities, they will be more aware of their role and position in the company. This helps employees plan their own to develop the knowledge and skills needed to fulfill individual duties and responsibilities.

4. How can businesses close the capacity gap?

4.1 Train current employees

According to Deloitte's statistics, 84% of companies agree that "continuing workforce innovation through lifelong learning is an important or very important element of their growth strategy." However, only 16% of organizations expect that they will significantly increase their investment in re-skilling within the next three years.

To fill these gaps, companies need to be willing to invest and commit to their skills upgrading and retraining initiatives. Besides employee training such as internal training ,..., there are many other resources that businesses can provide to employees, including:

- Mentoring program with guidance and support from experts in their respective fields

- Sign up for online courses, allowing employees to conveniently access new knowledge and learn at their own pace.

- Tickets support employees to attend events or conferences in their field

- Encourage employees to take training courses to gain certifications and benefits related to their field of work.

4.2 Recruiting new employees

In case the skill gap is too large and cannot be overcome through training or when time is limited, businesses can consider hiring new employees to supplement the necessary knowledge and skills. for work.​

Whether you're recruiting to address a skills gap or meet job requirements, hiring new employees is a must. However, businesses need to look carefully to ensure that new hires have the necessary skills. Examples include: Skills assessment, required certification requirements, or pertinent interview questions.

The trick is, if you can't find the right person for the job or don't need a full-time employee, you can take advantage of your backup workforce by outsourcing the right people with the right skills and experience. .

Hopefully through the above article, businesses have better understand what the skill gap is and the information surrounding this issue. Determining the skill gap in the business is very important, which can affect the revenue of the unit. If businesses want to learn more about this issue, please contact Vietnam Manpower right away!