As an employer, it’s crucial that you understand how to mitigate any skills gaps within your workforce. Skills gaps are the discrepancies between your expectations for your employees and your employee’s actual abilities. For example, if you’re expecting your employees to produce at a certain rate, and they’re only able to produce at half that speed, there is a skill gap present.

To have the most effective company possible, you need to be able to reduce the skills gaps that are present within your business. The best place to begin is to assess your own skills gaps and how to devise a plan of action to get rid of them. 

SkillS Gaps: How They Happen and THE CHALLENGES THEY POSE

Your hiring process is thorough, so you might be wondering, “How am I ending up with employees that don’t meet my expectations?” Don’t be too hard on yourself—having a skills gap issue is more common than you’d think.

Why Do Companies Have Skills Gaps?

Depending on your industry, you might have skills gaps for varying reasons, but here are some common causes:

You must begin a fast-moving project: When a high-volume or fast-paced project is beginning at your company, you might not have time to find a candidate that meets all your expectations to a tee.

Technology has changed: Sometimes technology moves so quickly that the hiring pool is not versed in the newest trends. This can lead to new hires not knowing about the programs and devices you’d like them to be proficient using.

The market is competitive: If you’re having a hard time finding talent because the market is competitive, you might end up with a few hires that do not meet all your expectations.

Why Do Skill Gaps Create Issues?

Put simply, if your employees are not able to complete the tasks you need them to, you’re going to end up with complications. These are a few reasons that skill gaps effect your company:

Productivity might decrease: If your employees are not meeting quotas, then your overall productivity might decrease.

Errors can occur: Not only do your employees have to finish the projects that they’re assigned, but they also have to complete them accurately. However, when a skill gap is present, your employees might make costly mistakes.

Employees will leave: High-quality employees are often bothered by employees who do not achieve at a high level. So, when there are many skill gaps at your company, trusted employees might decide to leave.

Customer dissatisfaction: Your clients and customers are your number one priority. You want to ensure they’re pleased, but when you have employees that don’t perform as they should, you might not please clients and customers.

How to Assess Your Own Skills Gaps

Now that you understand why eliminating skill gaps is so important, let’s talk more about how you can figure out where you have skills gaps of your own. Here are some tangible ways that you can access your own skills gaps:

Document what skills you need/have: Determine what skills you want your employees to have, and then, using your employees’ CVs and professional information, determine what skills your current employees have. From this, you should be able to see where you’re lacking.

Research competitors: Understanding how your company compares to its competitors is important. Find out what skills your competitors’ employees have, to see if your company has employees with similar skills. If not, you know there’s a skill gap that needs to be addressed.

Survey employees: You can survey employees to get information about your talent. You might send out a survey to managers to see if they think their team members possess the skills they should. Or you might send out a survey to see what skills that the people on your teams have.

Get input from stakeholders: Look outward and get information from your stakeholders. Their advice could help you identify skills gaps you didn’t know you had.

Making a Plan: How to Move Forward

Once you’ve determined what skills gaps you have, it’s time for you to devise a plan to reduce these gaps. Moving forward is possible when you take action by doing these things:

Invest in professional development: Oftentimes you can improve the caliber of your workforce if you invest in classes, workshops, or other professional development tools.

Find hands-on opportunities: Don’t underestimate how important it is for your employees to get on-the-job experience. Find ways to get your employees involved in projects and apprenticeships that can help them learn new skills.

Use tools like isolved People Cloud’s Learn & Grow module offered by Platinum Group. Utilizing the HCM Maturity Model Guide, Employee Experience Study (which surveyed over 1,100 employees), and a library of resources, will provide you with the tools you need to put a plan in action.

Benefits of Having a Sound Action Plan

Taking action is possible when you start investigating your own skills gaps and utilizing all the resources that Platinum Group offers. It will require effort to reduce skills gaps present within your company, but the benefits of doing so are incredible. Here are a few:

Your employees will be happier: When employees meet their potential and do well in their role, they are more likely to enjoy working and to stay with the company.

The productivity in your company will increase: Having competent employees who meet all of your expectations is beneficial because it increases your company’s productivity.

You’ll have an edge over your competitors: Being an industry leader is incredibly important, and when you don’t have skills gaps, you will have an edge over your competitors—which leads to profit.

ABOUT Platinum Group

Platinum Group is a human capital management resource with solutions to help you streamline operations so you’ll have time to manage your business. No matter which division you work with: Payroll/HR or Accounting, our team is built upon a foundation of support, service, camaraderie and collaboration that we share both in-house and with our wonderful clients. For more information about Platinum Group, or to schedule a demo of isolved, please visit our website.