6 Proven Steps to Develop a Skill Gap Analysis

To keep your organization current and competitive, your employees need to operate with efficiency and up-to-date skills that matter most for your specific strategy and your unique organizational culture.

To determine how well your work force is doing compared to what they need to do in order to meet performance expectations, we recommend you conduct a targeted training needs assessment. This will give you the information you need to remedy whatever skill gaps exist.

Here are the minimum steps involved:

1. Define your critical few business goals and the core business metrics that you want to move.
   

2. Calculate the value of moving the metrics and agree upon the business case.
   

3. Identify the key people, procedures and processes you will need to carry out the most important company functions and satisfy the company’s top objectives.
   

4. With the appropriate executive stakeholders, prioritize the list of the skills and knowledge required to fulfill every critical job role in the organization. Validate the list through observation and focus groups.
   

5. Synthesize the information into a report that recommends the critical few skill and knowledge gaps to be addressed to move the metrics identified in Step #1.
   

6. Devise a training and performance plan to address the gaps between the current performance and the desired performance levels. At a minimum, the plan should include design, experiential delivery, performance coaching and the measurement of skill adoption, performance change and business impact.