If this sounds familiar, it’s important to dive deeper into your teams’ strengths and weaknesses to better identify skill gaps. The best way to do so? Employee assessments!<\/p>\n
Employee assessments can help you build a stronger workforce by:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Detecting missing roles in your team framework<\/li>\n
- Raising the \u201cskill bar\u201d in the current employee ranks<\/li>\n
- Adjusting training and development initiatives to address high-need areas<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Employee assessments can help unearth the skills and talents your employees are missing, relating them to your company\u2019s priority needs, and initiating a training and hiring action plan to fill the gaps.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nWhat are the 5 benefits of assessments?<\/h2>\n
<\/div>\n![\"assessing](\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/glenn-carstens-peters-npxXWgQ33ZQ-unsplash-1024x681.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nAssessments can help in several aspects of CX and EX. Here are the five strategic benefits of an assessment:<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n- \n
- Minimize employee and customer churn<\/strong>
\nBy helping employees develop their professional skillset and contribute better, you will improve employee engagement, and waylay churn. Engaged employees are more productive, improving the customer experience they provide, thereby minimizing customer churn.<\/li>\n- Boost productivity<\/strong>
\nBy providing employees with the tools and skills they need to perform their task better, you can optimize processes and help employees achieve more. Offering such organizational support empowers employees to perform their best, improving productivity.<\/li>\n- Optimize crisis management<\/strong>
\nBy upgrading your employees’ skillset based not only on current demands but long term goals, you can help them tackle more complex situations, as and when they arise, more effectively.<\/li>\n- Help nurture a competitive edge
\n<\/strong>The global talent shortage has left many companies scrambling<\/a> to find the right fit for their needs. This talent shortage is only projected to increase. By helping your team build the skills required, you will help your business gain a competitive edge.<\/li>\n- Staying ahead of the curve with proactive learning and development<\/strong>
\nOne of the worst mistakes you can make is complacency. Customer expectations are rapidly evolving, as is the bar for customer experience. By ensuring a process of constant learning and development, you can create a team that is always in the know, ensuring you keep up with the times and continue to deliver the best in every aspect of your business.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\nAssessments help you gain critical data to inform several aspects of your business strategy. In doing so, assessments will contribute to several aspects of your customer and employee experience, assisting in nurturing a loyal and proficient workforce that will help your business stay ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nHow can assessments help bridge the skill gap?<\/h2>\n
The core benefit of an assessment is to identify skill gaps, so you know the right trainings and professional development plans to chart out for your employees.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nBut are skill gaps that prevalent? As it turns out, yes. 43% employers<\/a> report more than enough applicants, but too few reflect the right skills for the job.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nThe global talent shortage is currently increasing. A recent study<\/a> finds that left unchecked, the global talent shortage could amount to a lack of 85 million people by 2030, or $8.5 trillion in unrealized revenue!<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nThe reason is the lack of skilled employees, especially those in key skill areas such as STEM.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nThat’s why it has become imperative for organizations to take matters into their own hands. By helping employees along their professional development journey, you can create a team of skilled employees to ensure your organization is always one step ahead.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n![\"team](\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/austin-distel-_S7-KX8geL0-unsplash-1-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\nHow can you get started? Understand employee strengths and weaknesses. Identify skill areas that are needed for your business, and link them to employees with the right aptitude.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nInstead of only looking for the right people, help your people step up.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nCreating effective assessments<\/h2>\n
It’s one thing to know that assessment benefits<\/a> are sitting in the wings, but quite another to actually create and leverage the power of assessments.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nYou can get started pinpointing team skill gaps by recognizing that even individual contributions are all a part of the overall impact a team makes. So, the assessment strategy should embrace detecting group gaps yet be granular enough to cover project participants one by one.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\nReady to get started? Assess your employees today<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe more systematic your approach, the better the results.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nI strongly recommend that your assessment program covers executive suite stakeholders and project leaders while drilling down to staff-level employees. The common thread is communicating at all tiers engagingly and non-threateningly.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nStep 1 – Define your company\u2019s strategic goals\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/div>\nLet me put it this way: a management team without goals puts the cart before the horse and, as a result, will drift to wherever their compendium of skills takes them. With a 20\/20 vision, it’s unlikely to be satisfactory. In other words, if you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know what resources you need to get there?<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nThat’s why, before you create the assessment, here are the goals you will need to define:<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n- \n
- Your 12-month expectations as a minimum<\/li>\n
- What your current workforce must do to achieve the above.<\/li>\n
- The essential skills required to to succeed<\/li>\n
- Based on this, understanding\n
- \n
- which skills are missing but trainable in enough time<\/li>\n
- which skills need external hires owing to more complex training needs or experience<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In fact, with the machine learning (ML) and AI revolution invading processes left, right, and center, it can be anticipated that mainstream skill gaps will emerge in this arena as well. In short, new technologies don\u2019t just happen. Their power relies on trained employees to leverage them. This brings us to the next juncture.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nStep 2: Catch up on where and how technology is driving your business in the future<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/div>\nEvery company must get down to going through every job description and analyze:<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n- \n
- Those ready for automation<\/li>\n
- The skill adjustments required to initiate the above<\/li>\n
- New job descriptions currently not in the team framework<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
To get you going along this channel, look at 100 jobs of the future<\/a>, although things are moving so fast that some of these may already be disappearing in the rearview mirror. Another interesting read<\/a> focuses on the benefits and dangers of leveraging AI to improve efficiency.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nWhen you’re looking to hire the right talent, one of the biggest missteps to avoid is being reactive and trying to fill gaps at a moment’s notice. Instead, assessment protocols prescribe being proactive and anticipating the shortfalls before the defective touchpoints show themselves.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nStep 3: Measure the current skill inventory<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/div>\nThis involves getting down to the underlying topics of assessment types and deciding on the right assessments for employee training. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the open sesame to this aspect – determining how each employee contributes to the business.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nThere’s no other way. Conduct skills assessments starting with the KPIs merging with employee surveys and interviews. The secret to the success of such an assignment depends on:<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n- \n
- Establishing a transparent 360-degree feedback<\/a> process<\/li>\n
- Drawing information from the relevant individuals under the spotlight, their team leaders, and peers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
For line staff members under management supervision, you want their view on the leadership quality affecting their performance. In other words, this overview goes up, down, and sideways.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nUnfortunately, skill gap analysis goes hand in hand with personality traits, where the skills may be on the mark, but communication lapses and management style could be obstructions. However, in the broader scope of the evaluation, skills connect to all of that and, as such, should pull everything under the microscope.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\nInitiate improvements<\/h2>\n
Consider the following unsurprising data reflections: In 2022, moving into 2023, more than 50% of current workforce employees<\/a> urgently need upgraded training to maximize the skills needed to continue doing their job effectively.<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n - Drawing information from the relevant individuals under the spotlight, their team leaders, and peers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Establishing a transparent 360-degree feedback<\/a> process<\/li>\n
- Boost productivity<\/strong>
- Minimize employee and customer churn<\/strong>
![\"assessing](\"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/glenn-carstens-peters-npxXWgQ33ZQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n