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.’
Imagemakeover 
Skill Mapping is something i have not heard of. But it is interesting to learn something new. Individual skill sets I knew about but this is for a group I guess
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Yes, this helps in finding right person for the right job
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Skill Mapping may well be the future. Seems like something all organizations could do with. Thank you for this insightful post. I learned something new today.
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I am glad you found it useful.
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U have elaborated skill mapping very well.
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learned something new today. thank you for this post.
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Your blog is really insightful and would benefit a lot of people and organizations as a whole. The whole idea is new to me but I’m gonna share my takeaways from it to some people.
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I heard this term while we were given training at work but have understood it’s complete meaning from your post. Its important and helps the right people develop the right skills.
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In our company we generally do this practice and based on Skill Matrix we allocate the project to the team. It is a nice way to understand one’s potential abilities and where that person stands out. Nice write up.
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Skill mapping is the call of today for any firm or company hiring. Even in team building it is very important. You have explained it with such simple terms it is easy to understand the topic.
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I have heard my son talking about this. Everything is so technical these days. But it is a good way to make a team
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Interesting article. As a teacher and Blogger, never encountered the need for this. Was surely insightful.
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This is super informative and interesting- going to try and implement the same in my company so thank you for sharing!
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A very informative post. Skill mapping is a great way to visualize the strengths and weaknesses. Great to see it becoming more popular now.
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Insightful post. For an organisation to become great, the correct people with the right skill set need to fit into the roles. This mapping is very critical.
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This is something I heard very recently from one of my friends who was hiring interns. Glad I read this today to know exactly what it means and how can be approached.
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This is something new I have learnt today. And it really seems helpful.
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Now that’s something I’ve never heard of before but I’m glad you brought it to my attention. Sounds interesting and useful!
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I quit the industry three years back. This post is like a refresher for me. Since I’ve used this to on board people to team. Much helpful too
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Skill mapping is a new area that I have never tried to learn more about. Thanks for sharing.
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Hi Swati. I have been an educator in the past and your post made me think how skill sets can be used at various levels in all organizations. Very insightful post.
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This is something new for me. I read it twice to understand this concept and I will try it.
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You have made it look so easy. I am sure gonna try skill mapping
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Now I understand some conversations of my husband with his colleagues while being on WFH🤫. I used hear these lines- (he is ok so put him in this project not on that, she is better so she will in that project, this guy knows everything so put on all projects) and now I understand that it was all skill maping.
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I never knew about skill mapping or matrix. Very informative and detailed post.
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Skill mapping and creating Skill matrix for the Team in an organization can really make a huge change to the efficacy and competency of the organization.
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I have heard this term during my MBA and then refreshed it during my NLP certification. Skill mapping is a powerful tool for organizations to find the perfect match for the task and also it is a morale boost for the employees to perform well.
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In modern era, having a correct set of skills for assign project or task is one of the important aspect to get success. skill mapping is great process for organizations to select quality candidates for their projects. very well written post Swati.
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Such a great post-Swati, I was aware of the term Skill mapping but such a piece of detailed information is really going to help a lot!!
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Didn’t knew about this.learnt something new.thank you for providing something of which i was not at all aware.
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This was an informative post. I didn’t know about the skill matrix and I think it is a great way for self evaluation. Similarly businesses can know the exact skill sets that they need for project and hire or promote people accordingly
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Identifying the skills is very important by the team and good to know about the Skill Matrix theory that help team to allocate tasks according to skills.
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Wow such an informative post and you cover everything soo perfectly. Campus to corporate is a great way to guide young minds to reach their goals. Will share this article with youngsters in family
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Thanks dear
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Very important lost. My organization has a comptency matrix for all grade levels and it is very helpful for any employee as it tells them not only what is expected at the current level but they can also prepare for the next.
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I use this the all time and it is really really helpful
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A well mapped-out post on a subject I had no knowledge of.
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Thanks Noor
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