In my previous post I have talked about How to develop job oriented skillset. In order to develop any skill it is imperative to understand the skills one needs to develop and for that very purpose we need to do skill mapping.
Skill mapping is similar to competency mapping the only difference is competency mapping is more in depth which includes things beyond skills, like behaviour. Skill mapping is a visual representation of the skills needed to perform well in any given role and comparing that with the existing skills. This comparison will allow to identify the gaps. Skills maps can provide a view of the entire team by showing the contributions and skills of each individual in the teams.
Need of Skill Mapping
Skill mapping will not only show the strength and weakness of a team but will benefit the company as a whole. Organizations and companies do this in order to get better clarity and insight about their employee’s skillset.
- Skills mapping identifies which tasks and skills are crucial to the organization as only few employees can actually perform a certain task to a required level.
- It helps in recommending what kind of training employee needs.
- It can find the substitute candidate in case of emergency.
- It allows tracking the progress of each team and individual.
Skill mapping benefits the team as the organization would know the skills required by the team before a project begins. It benefits the employee as they could identify their strengths and weaknesses and accordingly can train themselves. It benefits the company, as they know what skill sets they require and accordingly hire people. While doing skills mapping they could clearly see available skills and missing skills and empower their employees with required skills or hire people with skills which are needed to reach company’s goal. A team that is aware about their strengths and weaknesses can work on upgrading their skills and in turn company gets the benefits so the company benefits mean good news to the clients.
Skill Matrix
Skill mapping provides immense benefits and the best way to visualize proficiency level is by using the tool called Skill Matrix. A skill matrix is a snapshot of all the employees skills laid out in matrix form.
How to make Skill Matrix?
Create one skill matrix for each department or a team. List down names of all the employees and their role down the left hand column and all their skills across the top row. Then enter the proficiency levels for each employee for each skill until the matrix is filled. Measuring proficiency varies from organization to organization.
Firstly, it is important to determine what kind of skills are required for a particular project. This input will list down the competencies that you’ll assess the team members on.
Secondly, assess the team member on their current skill level.
Some organizations divides their capabilities in 4 group
- No capability
- Basic level of capability
- Intermediate level of capability
- Advanced level of capability
Some organization uses 5 point scale, to determine knowledge and experience of their employees
- No experience or knowledge
- Little experience or knowledge
- Reasonable experience or knowledge
- Considerable experience or knowledge
- Expert experience or knowledge
Thirdly, the skills matrix may show that you have someone competent at a crucial task – but if the person is unwilling to perform the task, you will still hit a dead end. For each person, you’d want to know whether they have:
- No interest in applying this skill or knowledge
- Interested in applying this skill or knowledge
Lastly, incorporate all the information in the matrix and analyze.
You can find different types of skill matrix, so use what suits you the best or create one which works for you. Please find some of the examples below
For any project to be a successful it is important to make sure you have the right people and the right skills to start quickly and finish the job successfully. In such scenario the skills matrix, or competency matrix, is your best friend.
@ Swati Mathur
‘This blog post is part of the blog challenge ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’ hosted by Cindy D’Silva andNoor Anand Chawla.’
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