Skills Gap Resources for Leaders
Help your organization identify and address skills gaps in the workplace. Develop top talent and bring fresh skill sets to your company.
Skills Gap Resources for Leaders
Learn what skills gaps are, the ways they can impact your organization, and how to identify and address them.
As a learning and development (L&D) professional, it’s essential to understand how your employees are successfully contributing to your organization. An effective measure to help with this is by performing a skills gap analysis. Knowing what skills gaps are and how to identify and address them can help you better evaluate and support your employees.
Here’s everything you need to know about skills gaps in the workplace—including the definition, how to identify them, and how training platforms can be utilized to help reduce them.
What Is a Skills Gap?
When the skills and training job seekers have doesn't match the required experience that employers are looking for, this is known as a skills gap. Identifying gaps between employees’ actual skill sets and the skills necessary to perform various jobs helps organizations determine how to create and utilize learning platforms that support employees’ skill development. Understanding the gap between current employees’ skill sets and your company’s needs can also help you better find future candidates with the appropriate qualifications.
What causes a skills gap?
From an evolving workforce to inadequate training, several factors contribute to skill gaps. Here are some that experts have identified:
Shortage of appropriate graduates
Particularly the case for in-demand jobs in industries like computer science, engineering, and health care, there simply aren’t enough people being trained for the necessary roles.
Change in technology
As the world continues to navigate the new workforce landscape, companies need to adopt to the digital transformation just as employees need to brush up on the required digital skills to keep up to date with technological advancements.
Not enough training
A core objective in the L&D landscape is to create a workforce that adapts and evolves, rather than just increase the number of positions. To do this, it’s crucial to provide the appropriate training initiatives to the workforce.
Growing need for soft skills
While it’s important for candidates to have basic hard skills, in the ever-evolving workforce—especially in the remote landscape—it’s essential for employees to possess soft skills like empathy, adaptability, and resilience to better adapt to the future of work.
How to Identify Skills Gaps
L&D professionals can utilize a skills gap analysis, a tool for identifying the abilities and skills that employees need to meet specific job requirements and perform certain tasks more effectively. After conducting a proper analysis, leaders can use learning platforms to create training programs specially designed to help learners build the skills they need to grow.
Benefits of a skills gap analysis
Conducting a skills gap analysis is vital for understanding your organization’s needs and how your employees’ skills can meet those needs. Here are three reasons a skills gap analysis is important:
Provides insight into employee expertise
Analyzing skills gaps helps you determine which team members have the necessary skill levels for certain areas of your business and identify what roles employees’ skills are best suited for. Knowing this is also essential for focusing on areas where staff may need to improve.
Supports learning and development
Employees who feel that their existing skill set is not being put to good use are 10 times more likely to look for a new job than those whose skills are being well utilized. Leaders can use the results of an employee’s skills gap analysis to help fulfill their job requirements and grow in their roles—i.e., upskill and reskill the workforce.
Improves hiring and recruiting
L&D and HR professionals can use the data from a skills gap analysis to find and hire candidates with the necessary skills that fulfill various roles. This in turn can help your organization better meet business objectives for future growth and provide insights when planning and implementing learning and development programs for employees.
Using training platforms to address skill gaps
Another great advantage of a skills gap analysis is using the data to create unique approaches to training your employees in soft skill areas. While hard skills like technical abilities and role-specific qualifications are necessary, soft skills like communication and collaboration are just as essential for more positive business outcomes and priming your teams for leadership.
By meeting learners where they are and showing them the path forward to their career goals, personalized learning makes it easier for learners to build the right skills—while helping your org reduce or close skill gaps.
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See how LinkedIn Learning can help close skill gaps in your organization.