How HR Technology Can Identify Employee Skill Gaps

Skilled employees are an asset to a company and are necessary in leading an organization to success. Many employees are interested in career development and are willing to put in the time and effort to improve their competencies. The only piece that remains is for employers to ensure that employees are getting training and work experience in necessary areas. This is where your HRMS comes into play, follow this process and use your HRMSto identify employee skill gaps.

Get the Foundation Data in Place

The current HRMS on the market today offer a variety of options to track skills, behaviors, training, goals, and competencies. However, this is often one of the most underutilized, half-implemented areas of an HRMS. This data is of little value when it’s only implemented partially; you need to get your jobs and positions fully fleshed out and the required data attached to each job in the HRMS. It’s not enough for the data to be on paper or included in a separate job evaluation system; it needs to be readily accessible in the HRMS.

After you include that data in the HRMS, you need to assign and assess these skills, competencies, and behaviors at the employee level, even if you only start at the employee self-assessment level via employee self-service. For this process to work, you have to have a baseline of data for your employees.

Model Career Development Scenarios

Once your foundation data is in place in the HRMS, you can look at the big picture. Roles should follow a natural progression, and employees in each position should have their skills matching against that role’s skills. The “job” data and “employee” data must be calibrated, and they must speak the same language for this process to work. When done correctly, your HRMS should be able to highlight the missing pieces, mismatches and skill gaps that need to be corrected for effective progression.

Recommended Reading: HRMS Self Service - Find a self service HRMS to help fill any employee skill gaps

Get the Details in Front of Employees

Here is where the rubber meets the road for an employee! Career development is no longer a once-a-year discussion during the merit cycle. Instead, this should be an “on-demand,” active process using data that is readily available at any time in the HRMS. Employees should be able to see how their skills match their current job requirements and, more importantly, what will help them progress.

Today’s HRMS make career development easy and intuitive. Similar to the “recommended reading” on Amazon’s website, your HRMS should offer “recommended course or work experience” based on employees’ current levels and job matches. Employees should be able to see possible career progressions and any missing skills that match those future roles.

Make the Next Steps Easy

Finally, to move forward, you should incorporate possible next steps into your HRMS. Can employees easily navigate to your Learning Management module or system to register for training? Can employees use your HRMS to find mentors with whom they can gain job experience? After identifying employee skill gaps, employees should have the ability to remedy these gaps and thus close the circle.