How Organizations Can Identify Skill Gaps

Identify:

What capabilities are actually required?

Not simply:

What courses should employees attend?

Determine which skills employees currently possess and at what level.

Look for:

• missing capabilities
• insufficient proficiency
• concentration of critical skills in too few people
• emerging capabilities that need development

A workforce gap may not be visible today.

Technology, business strategy and customer expectations can create new requirements.

Possible responses include:

Build — develop existing employees.

Buy — recruit externally.

Borrow — use contractors or partners.

Redeploy — move existing talent internally.

Automate — use technology where appropriate.

The best response depends on the capability, urgency, cost and organisational context.