Information is power

Auditing the skills of a team or organisation and collecting data on who has talent is potentially one of the most useful things a Training and Development team can do.

Having objective information to compare against strategic needs could be the difference between mission success and failure. It could be essential in helping the company make the best investment decisions.

Skills Audits are typically used to support;

• individual performance management,
• training needs analysis,
• and succession planning.

Getting the most out of a Skills Audit requires understanding exactly what you are trying to achieve and asking the right questions.

Two considerations

Audits are about measuring or scoring skills. There are two fundamental considerations:

1. What do you need to measure?
2. How do you know the scores you collect are accurate?

You only get what you ask for!

“There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don’t know.” Donald Rumsfeld, American Politician

Even in a medium sized organisation most staff have specialised skill sets.  There could be an almost infinite number of different skills you could measure.

It rapidly becomes almost impossible to list all the skills an individual needs to do their jobs, let alone an entire organisation. If you try to simplify, you run the risk of not getting the information you need. Ask for too much, and you will alienate your Auditors.

The solution is to decide what you want to know about, and then decide how granular you want the analysis.

Firstly, aim Skills Audits at specific issues, places or people. Where necessary, divide Audits by job role, campaign, department or team. You can analyse the data collected on a project basis and perhaps later compile Audits to provide a fuller picture.

Secondly, consider the depth of the knowledge you require.

We call this granularity, SkillGate uses a cascade method to manage granularity.  The cascade has three levels: SkillSets, Skills and Questions.

1. SkillSets are high level. E.g. Knowledge, IT Skills, Communication.
2. Skills are specific skills within the SkillSet. E.g ‘IT Skills’ could include MS Outlook, Word processing, Powerpoint etc.
3. Questions address issues within the Skill. E.g. within the skill ‘Powerpoint’ you can ask as many questions as you like (or can get away with) to find out about skills such as ‘using themes’, or ‘adding Excel tables to slides’.

The total of scores for questions answered in a Skill will give an average score for the Skill. The average offers opportunity for simple Skill level comparison and the quick identification of possible problem areas. For more detailed analysis drill down into the individual question scores where needed.

Scoring

“The score will take care of itself when you take care of the effort that precedes the score.” John Wooden, American Basketball Coach

Scoring the answers to questions properly is practically an art form. The scoring mechanism used should depend on the purpose of the Audit.

1. The potential problem with the classic approach is that it is prone to subjectivity:

‘Rate this delegate’s skill on a scale of 1 to 10.’

For Reviewer A ‘quite good’ might be scored as 8/10, while for Reviewer B ‘quite good’ could be 5/10.

To make useful comparisons, scores could be moderated but this is complex and time consuming and introduces other subjectivities.

1. A derivative approach could be better. The option here is to use words (translated into numerical scores) to describe how much skill a delegate has.

‘No skill (1), some skill (2), good skill (3), very good skill (4)’

This is arguably more objective than option 1 above.

However, both options 1 and 2 make no allowance for how much skill the delegate should have.

By adding a Target, the evaluation can become more meaningful. e.g. delegate A is marked as having ‘no skill’ with a target required of ‘good skill’. Delegate b is marked as having ‘no skill’ but a target of ‘no skill’ is required. Delegates A&B both have ‘no skill’ but it now becomes clear that Delegate A should receive any investment available.

The problem with adding targets for every skill for every person or job role is that it is a huge job.

1. A third derivative approach assumes the target in the score. E.g.

‘Requires attention (1), Meets required level (2), Exceeds required level (3)’

In our example above Delegates A would meet the required level (scores 2) Delegate B would require attention (scores 1). Ironically, if measured by scoring in options 1 above Delegate B might actually have a better skill level than Delegate A. B should still be the one to receive the investment. This approach is simple and has the advantage of minimising subjective scoring error.

Your choice:

The decision as to which of these three approaches to take depends on the type of Skills Audit being undertaken.

A tutor auditing a set of onboarders after probation might prefer option one. As a single Auditor they can make relatively objective assessments about the absolute skill levels of different delegates.

In a succession planning Audit environment, option 2 above might be more useful. By contrasting skill levels for a given job against the targets for a different job, it is possible to see who might be the better candidate.

A company-wide Audit, where many managers are Auditors, might benefit from the third derivate approach. This could make multiple replies more immediately comparable and thus require less moderation.

SkillGate SkillsAudit is designed to address these issues while offering a robust, easy to use and secure working environment for administrators and auditors. It also offers a 360 tool that links assessment to solutions, a comparison tool for succession planning, and a Top15 Skill Gap report system ideal for training needs analysis.