A training gap can be identified when the does not match the .

The most effective teams are actively engaged in the learning process. The challenge you face is identifying what training your teams need to tackle upcoming tasks and meet their goals.

Conducting a training needs analysis will help you gain valuable insights into what your team members know now and what they need to learn in the future.

What is a Training Needs Analysis?

A training needs analysis is an evaluation you conduct to identify the current competencies of an individual or team and the skills they need to acquire to do their jobs successfully. It consists of three phases:

Phase 1: Identify Key Skills

The first step is to look at every role in your organization and identify the skills required to excel at each one. 

If your company has a tiered structure (e.g., junior, senior, management), you'll also want to consider different skills requirements for each level. It may help to evaluate your company's core competencies and determine how each role contributes to those.

Don't forget to consider short and long-term organizational needs as well. This process provides an excellent time to define skills that your team members will need now and in the future.

Phase 2: Conduct a Skills Assessment

Now it's time to engage in an evaluation process to assess your employees' current skills using the critical skills you have identified as a metric. This approach will allow you to determine who has the competencies they need and further training.

While conducting the skills assessment may not take long, preparing the evaluations is usually involved. Once you have identified the skills you desire, you must determine how to measure those and create the required testing instruments.

Phase 3: Focus on Training Gaps

Once you have the results from the skills assessment, you will be able to see the differences between what employees know and what they need to know. You can now use this information to design workplace training programs to bring workers up to speed. 

Why Conduct a Training Needs Analysis?

Now that you know how to evaluate training needs, you may wonder why it's so important to do so. Here are some of the benefits:

Map Out Your Training Plan for the Year

Creating and executing even a brief training initiative takes time and careful planning. When you realize training needs on the fly, staying on top of things can be nearly impossible. Fortunately, by conducting a training needs analysis, you can identify training needs effectively and plan.

Identify Training Gaps Before they Impact Performance

If you don't know how to identify training needs in an organization, you'll discover those gaps when you encounter performance issues. That can be a costly way to learn where your workers lack the training they need.

Set Training Priorities

Once you identify training gaps, you will be able to determine who needs to receive what training right away and which can be pushed back to later. 

This understanding will help you with the necessary scheduling and planning tasks. Developing a thorough training strategy bolsters your learning and development strategy and increases your chances of success.

Improve Your Training ROI

Have you ever had employees complain that their training seemed incomplete or irrelevant? This incongruence often happens when what they learn doesn't help them do their jobs. Unfortunately, these training misses cost money and reduce your return on investment. 

Uncover Needs You May Have Missed

You may be surprised at some of the things you learn when you conduct a training needs evaluation. There may be skills that you assumed your team members had that they do not. You could also uncover strengths you were unaware of. Fortunately, by identifying those missing skills, you can make up for that deficit through training.

Improve Morale

The happiest workers with their jobs aren't necessarily the most passionate ones. Instead, it's the ones who experience earned achievement and can serve others. The best way to obtain that is to have the skills needed to complete required tasks and achieve goals and objectives.

Next Steps

Now that you know what a training needs analysis is, it's time to create the programs your teams need to close those skills and knowledge gaps. Find the tools that will help you achieve this. The right learning platform will allow you to create the skills assessments you need to evaluate your employees' skills and deliver the training they need to be successful.

You can perform a skills gap analysis on two levels:

• Individual: You can identify the skills a job requires and compare them to an employee’s actual skill level.

• Team/company: You can determine if your employees have the skills to work on an upcoming project or if you need to hire externally. This analysis can help you target your employee training programs to develop the skills you need.

Here’s an overview of skills gap analyses, including scope, examples of when to conduct a skills gap analysis and ways to close skills gaps:

HR can initiate team and company-wide skills gap analyses by holding a meeting with managers to explain the process. It can also be a good idea to hire an external consultant to conduct a skills gap analysis. Hiring an outside evaluator can make the process more objective and will free up staff time to focus on other relevant work.

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Step 2: Identify important skills

Some employers say they have difficulty filling jobs because of skill gaps. But others argue that skill gaps are a product of unrealistic expectations. Identify the skills you need by answering two questions:

• What skills do we value as a company?
• What skills do our employees need to do their jobs well now and in the future?

Consider your company’s job descriptions, business objectives and company values. Think of the new skills your company might need in coming years. You could also survey team members on what skills they think are missing. Their insights could prove invaluable and involving your employees can help them feel that they’re contributing to your company’s growth.

Here’s an example of how to list and prioritize skills employees, teams and companies need:

Numerical rating scales can be a more practical way to assess skills gaps when you want to aggregate individual scores. You could use a five-point or three-point system. Ensure you have explicitly defined scales. For example, a scale of 1 to 5 could range from poor to excellent, or inexperienced to expert.

Step 3: Measure current skills

To measure skill levels, you could use:

• Surveys and assessments.
• Interviews with employees.
• Feedback from performance reviews.
• Skills management software, like Skills DB Pro and TrackStar that can make a skills gap analysis much less time-consuming.

Alternatively, you can measure skills by creating a skills spreadsheet specific to each individual position. For example:

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Step 4: Act on the data

There are two ways to fill skills gaps: training and hiring. Decide which approach (or combination) works best for each skill gap.

Train for skill gaps

More than half of companies train and develop their staff to fill open positions. Offer training for employees in skills you’d like to strengthen, for example using SAP or Excel. The right training can help you close gaps between current and desired skill levels.

You can use professional training firms to arrange workshops, training sessions and seminars for your staff. Along with formal training, you can also offer:

Hire for skill gaps

If your skills gaps are too wide to minimize with training, consider hiring to bring new knowledge and skills into your company. You could:

• Modify your hiring process to screen for skills your company needs. For example, you can add skills assessments (like writing samples) and numerical reasoning tests.

• Use structured interviews to reduce biases and ensure your criteria for choosing a new hire are strictly job-related.

Conducting a skills gap analysis can be time-consuming. But the results are worth it. Knowing which skills you need to grow as a business will help you hire – and retain – the right people.

A skills gap is the difference between skills that employers want or need, and skills their workforce offers. Conducting a skills gap analysis helps you identify skills you need to meet your business goals. With a skills gap analysis template, you can also inform your employee development and hiring programs.

What are the components of skills gap analysis?

Conducting a skill gap analysis is a three-step process that includes determining desired skills, assessing a candidate's skills, and identifying gaps. This analysis helps recruiters understand how a candidate will perform in a given role.

What is the skill gap in employees?

A skills gap is a gap between the skills an employee has and the skills he or she actually needs to perform a job well. Skills gaps vary depending on the job in question and the types of skills required for the job.