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April 2024
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Skills mapping is a useful tool with the power to revolutionize talent development in organizations of all sizes and industries. By creating a clear picture of employee skills and mapping them to specific roles within the organization, companies can gain valuable insights into their workforce capabilities and develop targeted strategies for improving employee skills in alignment with top-level organizational goals. In this article, I’m going to describe the benefits and process of skills mapping in your organization. Hopefully, I’ll inspire you to think about skills mapping in your role, on your team, and at your company. We’ll cover:
What Is Skills Mapping?Skills mapping is the process of identifying the skills needed for each role and team and mapping them against the skills of each individual employee. The resulting skills maps are then used to develop targeted training and development programs that enhance employee skills to be more aligned with organizational goals. Skills mapping helps to clearly define paths to different roles within the organization and what is needed to get to the next level for any existing or prospective employee. The three main areas of skills mapping are:
Organizations that want better employee and organizational performance may consider investing in skills mapping because it provides a targeted, focused approach to employee development. This can mean the difference between your business being open or closed on a short-staffed day. Skills mapping will help you to optimize your workforce planning efforts by ensuring you have the right people with the right skills available when needed. Skills vs competenciesIn many circles, skills and competencies are interchangeable when talking about what is expected and what people could do. As a result, sometimes skills mapping is referred to as competency mapping, but this is not always a consistent belief! For some, skills are a more simplistic view, measuring a person’s ability to execute a specific task or activity successfully and skillfully; the ability for someone to do something. In contrast, competencies are described as reflective of a person’s knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs demonstrated through behavior that allows them to achieve specific goals. So what’s the difference? For me, having a skill means “Yes, I can do that thing that I know how to do, in a way I have done it before” whereas a competency is more focused on “Yes, I can handle a scenario where this needs to be done or solved, even if in a slightly different way.” In my view, skills are more simplistic than competencies, and competencies have more depth and flexibility in application over time. If you want to nerd out on the differences, learn more here! Here I’ll refer to skills mapping, but this process can also be applied to competencies as well! Whatever your choice, an investment in mapping skills and/or competencies, and developing focused talent development plans to enhance those capabilities, is a wise investment that pays dividends over time. Benefits Of Skills MappingA 2020 study by Deloitte found that the best-performing companies are those who invest in developing internal opportunities and career paths. In organizations that invest in talent development, hard-to-find skillsets are developed in-house, which supports effective succession planning and overall leadership and competency development. These world-class companies are the same that have been growing and leading the pack for years—they might just be on to something when it comes to skills mapping! Let’s learn from the best and consider the many benefits of skills mapping as a critical element of your talent development process. The benefits of skills mapping include:
Skills mapping provides valuable insights into an organization’s talent pool. These can be used to optimize workforce planning efforts, enhance employee engagement and productivity, improve performance management processes, and enable effective succession planning efforts as well as diversity and inclusion initiatives. The Skills MatrixSkills matrices are used by organizations to identify and assess the required skills, knowledge, and abilities of their roles and teams, along with that of their existing employees. An output of skills mapping, skill matrices visualize the skill map across teams, roles, and individuals. A skills matrix provides a visual representation of the current skill sets of employees within an organization, allowing managers to quickly identify gaps in competencies and areas for improvement. The matrix typically lists skills on one axis and roles and/or employee names on the other axis. The intersection of each position and employee displays the skills required for that specific role or position, noting which skills are essential to the role. Employees are then assessed based on their proficiency level for each skill listed. In the above skills matrix, roles are mapped against each identified skill, along with notes about which skills are essential to the role. Next, individual team member skills are mapped in, which allows leaders to understand what skills are expected for the role, which is less important, and how each individual is performing against the expectations of the role (as indicated by their level of performance across each relevant skill). Skills matrices are often used as part of talent management strategies to help organizations plan for future hiring needs, provide targeted training opportunities to employees, and ensure they have a skilled workforce available when needed. They can also be useful in identifying potential candidates for promotion or transfer within an organization based on their existing skill sets. By being able to look across the skills of the existing team, leaders can quickly identify who has the skills they need when considering various emerging needs of the organization. It also helps to open discussions with team members about where they excel and where additional training might be needed. When used consistently, a skills matrix helps organizations optimize their workforce planning efforts by ensuring they have the right people with the right skills available at all times. How To Run A Skills Mapping ProjectIf your organization wants to leverage skills matrices to guide employee development and organizational effectiveness, you first need to map out the essential skills needed for roles and then map which skills employees already possess. This is doable, but it will definitely require some conscious effort and decision-making. Here I’ll share some structure and insight as to how to get started mapping skills in your organization. By following these steps, you can gain valuable insights into your current workforce capabilities and develop targeted strategies to enhance employee skills that align with organizational goals. Define the Objectives of the ProjectBefore selecting a skills model and getting to work mapping skills, it’s essential to understand what you hope to achieve through the project. Are you looking to identify gaps in employee competencies? Do you want to develop targeted training programs? Are you seeking to align employee skill sets with organizational goals? Identifying these goals will help you select a model that aligns with your objectives and will help guide your work throughout the process. Select a Skills ModelOnce you’ve defined the objectives of the project, the next step is to select the appropriate skills model/framework to guide the assessment and evaluation of roles, teams, and employee skills. There are several different models available, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to carefully consider which one will best suit your organization’s needs. A few common models of skills mapping include:
Gaining commitment and buy-in from the people impacted and that will interact with the skills model is critical to the success of implementing any model. By following these steps, you can ensure you choose a skills model that aligns with their objectives and provides an effective framework for assessing employee competencies.
Pro Tip: There is not one right answer here, even across industries. Talk with your team and leaders to understand their desires when it comes to a skills model. Once you find one you like, commit to trying it out! If it’s not the right fit, be bold to adapt and try something else! Once you’ve selected a model to try, you can begin the mapping exercise (now the fun really begins)! Map Skills to Roles and Teams
Return to step 2 in this section if this happens, and don’t be afraid to make changes as you go! The more you practice skills mapping, the better at it you will become and the clearer you will see the variance in skill requirements across roles and teams.
Sometimes, you’ll hear about parts of the job that you didn’t know about or complexities that require a particular skill you hadn’t anticipated. Checking the validity of the model with the team it reflects is a must. Assess Skills Across PeopleOnce you’ve mapped out the required skills for each role, assess employee abilities against those requirements using the chosen model. This can be done through surveys, interviews, and/or other assessment methods. The process typically involves conducting skills assessments or performance reviews to evaluate employee skills in various areas such as technical skills, communication skills, leadership abilities, problem-solving capabilities, etc. The assessment should reflect the selected model and should be treated carefully so as not to promote bias or skill inflation (where a manager or employee says that an employee is higher skilled than they really are, thinking that will help the employee, manager, or team in some way). In the past, I’ve used rating scales for skills mapping using three basic categories: underskilled, skilled, and over-skilled. With these simple categories, employees and managers can clearly articulate if an individual is below, at, or above expectations in a skill. Analyze Skills Across the OrganizationPhew! If you get this far, you’ve put in a lot of effort to select a model, align roles and teams to skills, and evaluate individual employee skills. Now it’s time to consider how to leverage the skills model, mapping, and rating to identify gaps between required skills and actual employee performance of the required skills. In this phase, your job is to identify gaps or misalignments in skills employees have against the requirements of their role. When you find gaps, don’t immediately perceive a person to be unskilled in their job overall or “not a fit.” Instead, consider what talent development initiatives might be helpful in closing the gap. Is there someone on your team that’s highly skilled in an area that another person is lesser-skilled in? That sounds like a great opportunity for a pairing, job shadowing, or a little skill share to me! When considering how to address any gap in skills, look around and honor the experts you might have already within the organization. Humans are social creatures, and learning is a social activity, meaning it’s super beneficial to both engagement and learning when one employee gets to mentor or teach another employee a skill that helps them be better at their job. When identifying gaps at scale, beyond one isolated team, I’d recommend developing targeted action plans for addressing any identified gaps in employee competencies, such as training programs or development opportunities. As you review the gaps across roles and teams, look for themes in skill gaps. For example, does your customer success team need training in conflict resolution across the board? That sounds like a great opportunity for a larger-scale course or development program tuned specifically to that group’s needs. Individuals and teams that get to experience learning that is tailored to their context will absorb more when they can apply the learning to their role directly, so always look for these opportunities to provide development in the context of the specific team or role! Finally, as you finish the initial mapping and gap analysis exercise, continue the work! Regularly monitor progress towards closing identified skill gaps and adjust action plans as necessary. Similarly as to how you might review your monthly spending in your department, take a moment each month to review skills levels and progress towards closing the identified gaps in skills. You might even consider bringing your team in on the fun while promoting social, supportive learning across the group. When you bring a new role or team online, be sure to create a skill map to reflect what is required of that role, and map new employees against the requirements of their roles to ensure each employee is receiving the development they need to be successful. Skills Mapping ToolsThere are a variety of skills mapping tools available today that can assist organizations in assessing and mapping employee skills across roles and teams in almost real-time as well as helping with data analysis. Here are some examples:
Each of these software options is a likely contender for organizations looking to map, matrix, and visualize needed skills across the organization. Finding the right software tool for the task is a very personal process, starting with the objectives of the initiative coming from the organization. Before diving into the software, be sure you and your team are aligned on why you want to try skills mapping and what results you hope to see from leveraging a technology solution for skills mapping to support talent development. Let’s map it out!Taking the time to engage in skills mapping helps discover the path toward sustainable growth in organizations and will pay dividends in the long run because you’ll know what talent and skills you have, and what talent and skills you need to acquire in the future. This will help you to upskill team members and you’ll also see boosts in engagement and productivity. Further resources to help you develop the rights skills in your organization:
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