It’s fair to say that the skills of your employees can make or break your business. You need to be able to assess the skills your people have while providing opportunities to learn new ones. So, what is skill mapping and how can it help you deliver more effective employee development?

What is skill mapping?

Skill mapping is one of the most important aspects of skill management at work. Basically, it’s the practice of evaluating the presence of skills, knowledge, and key qualifications in your business. First, you collect the relevant data, then you create a visualization of how relevant skills are distributed across your whole business.

Now, let’s look at the role of skill mapping, its impact, and how to map skills effectively.

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Why skill mapping matters

Before you can focus on skill development and workforce planning, you need context. Otherwise, you’ll be making decisions in the dark. After all, what is skill mapping if not a way of informing the journey ahead?

Skills requirements change over time. Maybe departing employees took critical qualifications with them, or perhaps your people need retraining to handle the new tech. Additionally, this mapping helps you stay agile in the face of these issues.

It also unifies employee development strategies with business goals. For example, a manufacturing company trying to be an industry leader for workplace safety might notice a shortage of workers with first-aid certifications.

Developing skills also gives your people a sense of career development and job satisfaction, which is vital for engagement. Only, it seems that too many organizations haven’t gotten the memo. According to Gallup:

  • Only 26% of US employees strongly agree their employers encourage learning new skills.
  • This is compared to 43% of senior leaders, showing disproportionate access to skills development.
  • Less than half of employees strongly agree they have the skills they need to be exceptional.

The key components of skill mapping

Whether manually or through your chosen learning management software, you need to cover the following bases:

  • Skill identification: Based on your business and its requirements, highlight necessary skills. Some will be obvious, like AI coding experience in a tech company, or customer service training in hospitality. Others might be less self-evident, like mental health awareness training for managers.
  • Skill assessment: Once you know what you’re looking for, you need to evaluate employee capabilities using data from performance reviews, goal tracking and onboarding, as well as additional competency testing.
  • Skill gap analysis: With your data collected, it’s time to crunch the numbers. Use an algorithm to calculate skills distribution across your business. Visualization through graphs and heat maps can show which skills your company lacks, right down to specific teams and departments.

With a proper skills map of your business, you’ll be in a position to deliver informed skills creation and development for your employees.

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How skill mapping benefits businesses

Much like a real map, a skill map can keep HR from getting lost in the weeds. Therefore, this type of mapping brings many workforce planning benefits to businesses in a few different ways:

  • Workforce planning and resource allocation: Workforce planning is an investment as far as resources go. Skill mapping lets you know at a glance which areas of the business most need support and development to prevent a skills shortage crisis.
  • Enhanced employee engagement: Skill mapping supports employee engagement by allowing you to deliver the training your people need. Employees are more likely to be engaged in companies which effectively support their learning and development.
  • Align business goals with employee growth: One of the biggest mapping benefits is how it supports business development. For example, succession planning teaches leadership skills to employees who may one day lead teams and departments, or even reach the C-Suite.

The steps to effective skill mapping

Now you know what it is, the question remains, what is skill mapping like in practice? Firstly, to give you the answer, we’ve put together this list of simple steps:

  1. Analyze workforce skills: Review onboarding, performance management and employee development data, and administer competency tests, to determine skills distribution.
  2. Identify and predict skills requirements: Visualize your findings across the whole organization, manually or with skill mapping software. Compare this to business objectives and generate realistic assessments of skills. Consider how external factors, like developments in tech, might affect future requirements.
  3. Develop tailored learning pathways: Not everyone wants to climb the ranks of management. Provide varied L&D paths and skills generation suited to the individual needs and strengths of each employee.
  4. Regular skill map reviews: Between technology and turnover, skills maps can quickly become outdated. That means, try to establish a consistent review schedule to make sure you’re delivering employee development in the most effective ways possible.
what is skill mapping

Skill mapping use cases

Now, you might be thinking, “Okay, so it’s generally useful, but what is skill mapping going to do for MY business?”

It’s a fair enough question. Plenty of industries and sectors stand as testaments to the importance of skill gap analysis and employee development strategies. For example, data-handling tech companies might use skill mapping to see who needs security compliance training.

Plenty of businesses are subject to rapid change, which is why it’s essential to provide Continuous Professional Development (CPD). For instance, in the healthcare sector, medical practices and policies change and evolve as new or expanded research findings come to light. From doctors to nurses, it’s vital for medical professionals to have up-to-date knowledge.

Ultimately, any business can benefit from skill mapping and development strategies. For a specific, real-world example, let’s look at the manufacturing and design company, Marvin Doors and Windows.

This company uses our Human Success Platform’s AI features to generate organizationally aligned skills taxonomies. It also streamlines mundane tasks in the learning process to ensure that employees stay engaged and retain what they learn.

In the words of Marvin’s manager of enterprise learning development, Tai Davidson:

“So, my favorite AI feature right now with Zensai is Skill Generation. It gives us a very good starting place, it’s helping us automate our job or role-based skill creation.”

Start your mapping today

As you can see, skill mapping is an essential strategic component of modern workforce planning. It plays a key role in enabling informed HR and L&D decision-making.

In a world where tech changes in leaps and bounds, it’s vital to head off skill gaps before they become critical issues. Also, it’s something you can start doing immediately, so now is not the time to delay!

Unlock human potential: Get your free guide to skill management

Effective skill management is key to unlocking employee potential and driving organizational success. Our free Book, “Unlock employee skills: Your guide to creating thriving teams,” is your cheat-sheet for developing a strong skill management process and ensuring your teams are equipped to thrive.

Download your free copy below to start building resilient, successful teams ready for the challenges of the future!