Skill Gap

What Is Skill Gap?

Skill gap is the difference between what a given organisation’s skill requirement is and what its employees can do or possess. This gap can impact innovation and productivity levels in the business.

Why Do Skill Gaps Occur?

Skill gaps are caused by numerous factors. The adoption of new technology may leave older systems unused and make the existing skill sets obsolete. Failure to foresee future gaps due to poor long-term planning policies is just one of the reasons.

For example, if an organisation decides to implement artificial intelligence automation technology, it might lack skilled personnel who are able to interpret the data and analytics in the new systems. Hence, despite the positive intentions for which it is implemented in the first place is hindered by the lack of skills.

How Can Organisations Identify Skill Gaps?

Human Resource (HR) professionals have a number of different ways to collect information on existing shortcomings:

Skills Assessments:

Evaluations or audits measuring the gap in competencies of the employees with requisite skills.

Performance Reviews:

Feedback or review sessions where goals are set and highlighted areas discussed where employees have not met expectations.

Industry Benchmarking:

Measurement and comparison of the capabilities of the employees with other firms operating in the same industry.

Employee Surveys:

Gathering relevant and pertinent information from employees on what additional training they may require.

The above highlighted tools enable human resource teams to not just quantify qualitative gaps but also devise planned initiatives.

What Is The Best Way To Address Skill Gaps?

For companies to close skill gaps, a clear strategy for managing human resources is necessary. Investment in company-initiated upskilling or reskilling via training, mentorship, or e-learning platforms is one approach. Offering in-house tutorials or collaborating with outside educational centres to grant certificates can improve both hard and soft skills.

Further, improving the recruitment drive to target and hire candidates with critical skills also helps in aligning workforce segmentation with organisational goals.

What Reasons Could You List for Closing Skill Gaps?

Ignoring skill gaps can have negative consequences like lowering employee morale, reducing operational efficiency, and losing market share.

On the other hand, addressing skill gaps helps build an organisational culture of learning, enhances employee engagement, and promotes innovation. For HR, control with skill gap closure aids integrated workforce planning. They can easily make the organisation agile and competitive when they have a resilient and future-ready talent pool built into the business.

As for employees, closing skill gaps leaves better career prospects.