Only 25% of businesses make it to the 15-year mark.
A lot of challenges come with running a business, and if you want to succeed, you need to be able to overcome these challenges. It’s important to have a business plan in place, but you also need to bear in mind that things can change. Being able to adapt will make the difference between success and failure.
One of the most effective ways to ensure your business is ready for whatever comes is skills mapping. It will prepare your company and your employees so that you’re ready for any challenges that arise.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at what a skills map is and how it can help your business succeed. Keep reading for more.
What Is Skills Mapping?
Skills mapping involves creating a detailed skill map for your organization. It will identify the current skills your business has as well as any new skills that it will need in the future.
You’ll need to assess strengths, weaknesses, and skill gaps within your organization and your workforce. Doing this will help better prepare your company for future business challenges.
Skills mapping has become more important in recent years. This is because businesses have needed to become more agile to handle potential disruptions. Many businesses now use skills mapping to help ensure they’re able to navigate future challenges.
Establishing a skill map will give you an insight into the skills, talents, and capabilities that your team possesses. You can then determine areas of weakness where development may be needed. Knowing what skills are present and what ones are missing will make it easier to determine what resources and strategies will help your business grow.
On top of this, skills mapping can help you better support your employees. They’ll have an easier time making informed decisions on things like filling roles, making promotions, assigning tasks, providing training, and more. It’s one of the most effective ways of making your business more agile and preparing it for the future.
The Benefits of Skills Mapping
Skills mapping is essential for determining future skills your company needs. It offers a range of benefits that will help any company prepare for changes and challenges that they might face.
Helps You Visualise Competencies
When challenges are approaching, you need to know what resources you have at your disposal so you can make sure you’re ready. When thinking of resources, most business owners go straight to finances. You should also be looking at the skills your workforce has.
Many organizations haven’t put much (if any) time and effort into assessing employee skills. Smaller companies often have a hard time doing this as they don’t have the resources (time and people) needed. There are a few ways you can get started with skills mapping even if you’re running a smaller business.
Conducting skills assessments is a simple way to establish the skills of your employees. When doing this, you want to capture both hard skills (technical skills like software development) and soft skills (like teamwork, communication, and leadership). You can do this using surveys and other feedback tools.
Capturing the depth of skills mastery will help you visualize the competency each employee has with various skills. You can establish a skills matrix that isn’t as detailed as a skills map but can give you an idea of your workforce’s current standing.
Centralizing skills data involves compiling skills data from multiple systems and integrating them into a central platform. Doing this will allow you to keep all of the most up-to-date information in one place so you can be more confident in the accuracy of the information you’re looking at.
Reveals Gaps in Your Current Workforce
It can be quite encouraging to see all the strengths of your workforce laid out. Unfortunately, it can also be quite worrying when you see the gaps that are there too.
Don’t panic when you see these gaps as the majority of companies have skill gaps, so it’s to be expected. Knowing what gaps there are will make it easier to develop a plan to reduce them.
Identify skills for open roles so you can establish what you need from new hires. This will make it easier to attract qualified candidates and you can keep your hiring process fair and objective.
Create contingency plans so you can be ready for any unexpected business changes. You can prioritize hiring and training around these plans to make sure you’re prepared.
Align your strategy with both current and future goals so you can cover all bases. Doing so will help you prioritize skill gaps and achieve goals more easily.
Look at your people and data often so that you can make decisions based on the data available. This will help you understand your employees, the skills available, and your professional goals. Having a clear view of these will allow you to better plan for the future.
Leads to Creativity in Roles and Responsibilities
It’s easy to forget what skills and talents your employees have without skill mapping. With everything laid out, you can get creative with the skills available. You can highlight various opportunities to help close gaps and avoid unnecessary layoffs.
When looking to fill a position, it’s common to hire a new employee. When you can see the skills your current workforce has, you may be able to utilize certain individuals to take on new responsibilities.
Helps Improve Retention Rates
Being able to reallocate employees based on their skills can improve job satisfaction. On top of that, skills mapping makes it easier to upskill your team. Giving people the opportunity to improve and learn is one of the best ways to improve employee retention.
Creating a Skills Map for Your Company
Creating a skills map that covers your workforce can be incredibly beneficial – but it’s not easy. At Bradford Jacobs, we offer a range of services that can help your business grow and succeed.
Take a look at our Engagement Services page to find out more about building your skills map today.
