4 Smart Steps to Assess Which Skills Make the Biggest Difference

Do you know which skills make the biggest difference?

Sadly, very few organizations take the time (or have the capability) to accurately assess their most important training needs. Without a clear picture of what matters most, even the most well intentioned training assessments become a dangerous guessing game that can waste valuable training dollars and time.

If you want to know where to focus your training dollars, make sure that you:

1. Identify Success Metrics: With your key stakeholders, identify the critical few business metric(s) that you are trying to move.  For example, sales initiatives typically try to improve revenue, margin, win rate, portfolio mix, deal size or sales cycle while management initiatives typically try to either improve employee engagement, performance or retention or to decrease employee relations issues.
   
   
2. Target ROI: Calculate and agree upon the value of moving those metrics compared to other priorities and the investment required to make it happen.
   
   
3. Get Leadership Buy-In: Ensure, before you identify any organizational skill and knowledge gaps, that all key leaders agree upon the most important competencies needed to push the business strategy forward in a way that makes sense.
   
   
4. Assess Strengths and Weaknesses: Assess the target audience to uncover strengths and weaknesses, the gaps between high and low performers, and key barriers to success …but only after leadership agrees on the success metrics, ROI, and the critical skills required to execute your strategy.