03 - Identifying Training Gaps.

(aihr.com, 2023)

Introduction

Training gaps are the specific sections where workforces are lacking knowledge or skills to achieve certain goals at work. Recognizing and addressing these gaps will support organizations to ensure that their workforce has the necessary capabilities to perform effectively and contribute to the overall success of the company (Karpenkova, 2023).

Training gaps may also occur as a result of implementing new technology, evolving business requirements, or just insufficient training. Also according to the lumenlearning.com, training gap exists when there is a change between required behavior or performance and actual behavior or performance. This gap can arise on an individual, team or organizational level. Training gap can reflect a lack of hard or soft skills, a lack of understanding of job expectations, industry knowledge, cultural norms or other issues. So having training gaps in your team or organization is general situation. And most importantly identifying those gaps helps you to develop a training strategy to improve the lacking skills or knowledge and build a more successful team.

Analyze and Identify Training Gaps In Your Workplace

So the process of identifying skills gaps is called a training needs assessment. And it can be break down into following steps defined (Karpenkova, 2023).

1. Set learning objectives and outcomes.

Understanding the required end result will provide focus and direction to your analysis. Clearly describe the reasons for conducting the training needs assessment. For instance, you may want to identify the reasons behind poor employee performance, address specific organizational challenges, or adopt new business software.

2. Determine the skills/ knowledge which require.

Prepare a list of all the soft and hard skills and it will help to perform the task successfully. Define desired proficiency levels for each skill and this will be a benchmark you against the skill sets.

Follow below steps to benchmark the proficiency levels.

• Categorize the skills based on their relevance to the goal.
• Consider the skills that are critical for successful job performance and rank them accordingly.
• Define the desired proficiency levels for each skill category.

3. Communicate the purpose of assessments to employees.

Make it clear why you’re performing this evaluation to make sure your employees aren’t enticed to overestimate their skills during the assessment process.

Clearly explain that the assessment is not designed to negatively evaluate their performance. Instead, point out, that the purpose is to identify sections, where extra support and training can be provided to improve their professional development.

4. Break down skills based on jobs and teams.

This process should align with the specific job roles and team responsibilities, ensuring that the skills being evaluated are relevant and tailored to each group.

If the organization-wide you’ll most likely need different skill proficiency levels from different roles for assessment process. Within each job role or team, prioritize the required skills based on their importance and relevance to the job responsibilities.

Outline the specific requirement and conditions for each proficiency level. For example, if the skill is “customer service,” you would determine what it means to be at a basic level, an intermediate level, or an advanced level in customer service.

5. Create a proficiency scoring system.

Define the rating scale that you will be using to assess and score employees skills. This could be a numerical scale (e.g., 1 to 10) or descriptive labels (e.g., Novice, Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced). For each proficiency level, create clear criteria that define what it means to achieve that level of proficiency.

6. Assess employee skills.

• Collect employee feedback. Use surveys and questionnaires to get insights into employees’ self-perception of their skills and knowledge.
• Run assessment tests. Develop tests or quizzes that evaluate employees’ understanding and proficiency in specific areas.
• Offer practical assessments. Design tasks or simulations that allow employees to showcase their abilities in a real or simulated work environment.
• Conduct 360-degree reviews. Gather feedback from people an employee interacts with.

Examine individual assessments to understand each employee’s strengths and areas for improvement. Combine the data on all the skills and knowledge your employees have, making notes on the current proficiency levels and the number of employees that have specific capabilities.

7. Plot your data in a skills matrix.

A skills matrix is visually represents the proficiency levels of employees in different skills or competencies, allowing you to identify skill gaps and prioritize training needs.

• List the skills you’re considering for in your organization on one axis and the employees’ names or identifiers on the other axis.
• Fill in the skill matrix with the proficiency levels achieved from the assessments conducted in step 6.
• Identify the sections, where there are significant gaps between the desired proficiency levels and the actual proficiency levels of your employees.

8. Prioritize training needs.

Understand which areas require immediate consideration and focus based on their impact on business goals, employee performance, and organizational priorities.

• Evaluate the significance of each skill gap in relation to your goal. Some of the skill gaps will have a more important impact on performance, productivity, or the ability to achieve desired outcomes rather than others.
• Cluster related skills. Recognize common areas where multiple employees show proficiency gaps.
• Consider both immediate and long-term training needs. Some of the skills may require urgent attention due to their impact on ongoing projects or immediate business demands, while others may be more strategic in nature, contributing to long-term organizational development.
• Evaluate the availability of resources, including budget, time, and expertise, to support training initiatives. Prioritize the training needs that you can address with the available resources.
• Compile a list of the prioritized training needs, ranking them in order of importance or urgency.

Addressing Training Gaps

Once you have recognized training gaps, then can design targeted training initiatives, such as workshops, courses, on-the-job training, or mentoring programs, to address the specific sections of need (Karpenkova, 2023).

1. Develop a training plan

There will be few concerns raise at this stage.

• Selecting the Training methods. Select the most effective employee training methods based on the nature of the skills gaps and the learning preferences of your employees. 
• Delivery schedule. Create a schedule that summaries the timing and duration of each training activity. 
• Consider both direct and indirect training cost when allocating budget. 

Consider on existing initiatives and evaluate how they how these initiatives align with the identified training gaps and determine if any adjustments or enhancements need to be made to integrate them into your overall training plan.

Evaluation methods. Determine how you will assess the efficiency of the training. This could involve pre- and post-training assessments, participant feedback surveys, on-the-job performance evaluations, or other evaluation methods.

2. Use employee training software.

Regardless of the selected training method(s), the right software will help on effectively deliver training and facilitate progress tracking. 

There are various types of training software that can support training initiatives and enhance the learning experience for your employees.

You can choose the right one based on your needs:

• Learning Management System (LMS):  Software allows to create, deliver, and track training courses and materials.
• Digital Adoption Platform (DAP): DAPs offer seamless software training through in-app guided content such as interactive walkthroughs, onboarding flows, and knowledge bases.
• Knowledge Management System: this is where all the company knowledge and documentation is stored. Employees can use it to access the necessary information exactly when they need it.
• Microlearning Software: These platforms let organizations split their training programs into bite-sized pieces, allowing employees to spend less time and effort consuming training content. 

Conclusion

Even though above mentioned factors and justifications, key party is that Hour One, (2023) employee training is critical for a company to achieve its long-term goals. As the trending  training topics for 2023 include emotional intelligence, cross-skilling, project management, conflict resolution, team building, and more. Businesses are utilizing video lessons more than traditional methods because they are easy to create using AI software and allow employees to learn at their own pace. Regardless of the training topic, providing employees with video lessons is far more effective than basic text courses and in-person training.

List of References

aihr.com, 2023. A Guide to Conducting a Training Needs Analysis + Free Template aihr.com [Online]. Available at https://learn.gnowbe.com/mlc/training-needs-analysis-at-work. Accessed on 10th August, 2023.

Hour One, (2023) Top 11 Employee Training Topics for 2023 hourone.ai [Online] Available at https://hourone.ai/blog/top-employee-training-topics/. Accessed on 10th August, 2023.

lumenlearning.com, Module 7: Onboarding, Training, and Developing Employees, Identifying Training Gaps lumenlearning.com [Online]. Available at https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-humanresourcesmgmt/chapter/identifying-training-gaps/. Accessed on 10th August, 2023.

Karpenkova, 2023. How to Identify Training Gaps (+Overcoming them) whatfix.com [Online]. Available at https://whatfix.com/blog/identify-training-gaps/. Accessed on 10th August, 2023.

Sands, 2022. How to identify employee training and development needs breathehr.com [Online]. Available at https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/blog/topic/employee-performance/how-to-identify-employee-training-and-development-needs. Accessed on 10th August, 2023.