5 Steps to Conduct a Skills Audit

Nurturing leadership skills, adopting and leveraging smart technologies, and growing involvement in social responsibilities are prime reasons for an organisation’s growth. Among other things, conducting a skills audit to identify gaps in skill sets or to recognise unharnessed talent is also a leading reason for a company’s overall development.

What is a skills audit?

Auditing skills is a thorough process of reviewing and identifying areas of improvement, gaps in the company’s workforce and skills required or even figuring out untapped talent. It gives the organisation a clear picture of what each employee brings to the table and helps better plan future hires and organisational structuring.

According to a Mckinsey report, 87% of companies worldwide know they have a skills gap or will do so soon. By understanding where the gaps lie, HR teams can hire based on the required or necessary skills to fill those gaps. Insights gathered from a skills audit enable a more targeted hiring process.

As roles become more fluid and flexible with the changing times and trends, auditing skills helps HR teams to prepare, implement, and provide the necessary training for an individual or team to upskill based on the new business requirements.

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What are the different types of auditing skills?

There are two types of skills audits:

Personal skills audit: Used to measure or gauge an employee’s performance for a specific or general skill. It sheds light on the gaps or strengths of the individual. Information gathered during a personal skills audit can also be leveraged in a group audit.
Group skills audit: Unlike a personal skills audit, a group audit involves assessing the skills of all employees within the organisation. The primary purpose of this type of audit is often to create an inventory of the employees’ skill sets.

How to conduct a skills audit

Step 1: A skills audit is a time-consuming process with many stakeholders involved. Before you begin, consider business challenges, opportunities, and objectives. The audit must answer three critical questions–what the current and anticipated challenges are, how can the organisation explore growth opportunities, and what is the organisation hoping to achieve by the end of the audit?

Step 2: Make the scope of the audit as narrow as possible without compromising the indispensable. To simplify the process, you can further break strategies and skills like leadership, technical, and people skills into categories.

Step 3: To avoid confusion between teams and individuals, stick to one method for the audit. It can be one-on-one interviews, self-assessment surveys, a traditional skills test, or even a peer review, among other ways.

Step 4: Ensure that the audit is legally compliant and train the employees about the audit and the processes required. Also, train professionals conducting the audit sufficiently to avoid any disorganisation.

Step 5: Create training, upskilling, hiring processes and plans based on the audit’s insights. Information gathered from the audit helps HR and managing teams develop short and long-term strategies to achieve organisation-wide goals.

A skills audit provides an overall view of your employee’s professional growth and how upskilling can help them achieve greater heights. It also helps the organisation create strategies to fill skill gaps to help achieve business goals.

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