Skill Mapping: Definition, Importance, and Why Companies Need It

As competition intensifies across industries, companies are increasingly focused on enhancing employee performance through targeted strategies such as skill mapping. Statistics suggest that nearly 66% of companies now use skill mapping to assess and strengthen employees' skills. 

Skill mapping is a strategic process that helps companies identify and document the specific skills each team member possesses. It also helps pinpoint skill gaps, and build a team with diverse capabilities. 

In this article, we’ll talk about how this process works and why it is important for companies.

Understanding Skill Mapping Framework

Skill mapping framework is the process companies use for identifying, analyzing, and documenting their employees' skills and capabilities. It involves creating a clear visual or data-driven representation of what each employee can do and where their strengths lie. 

They can then use a professional skills map to help identify and develop their strengths, bridging skill gaps between their current abilities and the skills needed for future roles.

A report by McKinsey showed that organizations that align employee skills with business goals through tools like a skills map see a 20% increase in productivity. 

Source: Workhuman

How to Do Skill Mapping in Companies?

As businesses move forward, it becomes more crucial than ever to keep track of the skills employees bring to the table. Here’s a simple way to conduct this process in your organization:

1. Identify the Key Skills Required for Each Role

First, list the essential skills for each position within the company. This can include both technical skills, like data analysis or coding, and soft skills, like communication or teamwork. 

2. Assess Current Skills Among Employees

Gather information about each employee’s skill set, either through self-assessments, manager feedback, or performance reviews. For a clear overview, you can also use a template to document each employee’s proficiency level in relevant skills. 

3. Compare Skill Gaps with Required Skills

Once you are familiar with employees' skill sets, compare the competencies against the required skills for the job position. This step will highlight the skill gaps that need to be addressed with the help of specialized training programs. 

4. Ask Managers for Feedback

Don’t simply rely on employees and their self-reflection, ask managers for feedback. This step will assist you in analyzing which employees have the most relevant skills and where they need to improve. 

5. Address Skill Gaps with an Action Plan

For each gap identified, create a specific, actionable plan. For instance, it could involve arranging for skill-based training programs, pairing employees with mentors or hiring new team members to fill crucial skill areas. In fact, 44% of the managers hire new employees to fill any skill gaps and make the team more productive. 

6. Regularly Update the Skills Map

Skill requirements can change as the company grows or shifts focus, so it’s essential to update your skills map regularly. Such a process ensures that the company always has a clear picture of employees' skillet sets and can quickly address any emerging gaps.

Source: ResumeGenius

Benefits and Importance of Skill Mapping

The importance of skill mapping lies in its ability to help companies maximize their workforce’s potential and ensure they have the right skills for both current needs and future growth. 

Here are some reasons why skill mapping cannot be overstated:

1. Identifies Skill Gaps

Skill mapping enables organizations to spot gaps between the skills they currently have and the ones they need to survive. In a constantly changing business landscape, knowing these gaps helps companies proactively address them through training, employee development plans or recruitment. 

According to a survey, 72% of those CEOs said that talent gaps are one of the top challenges businesses have to face. 

Source: LinkedIn

2. Optimizes Talent Utilization

Placing employees in roles that align with their strengths leads to higher job satisfaction and productivity. When employees can leverage their strengths, they’re more engaged and motivated, boosting company performance. 

For example, a marketing team may identify through skill mapping that some members excel in content creation while others shine in data analysis. Assigning tasks based on these insights greatly contributes to team productivity. 

3. Supports Strategic Workforce Planning

Skill mapping enables companies to proactively plan for future needs by understanding which skills are in place and which are lacking.

Source: Assembled

4. Boosts Employee Development and Retention

The skill mapping process creates an environment where employees feel valued. It shows that the company values their skills and is investing in their growth. Brands like Unilever use this approach to assess employees’ career goals and provide customized training, helping them feel welcomed and motivated. 

5. Improves Internal Mobility

Most organizations promote employees from within to boost morale and save hiring costs. By promoting current team members, companies can show that their hard work is valued, making employees feel more motivated. 

6. Enhances Collaboration and Cross-Functional Work

By creating a professional skills map, companies make employee skills more visible across departments. For example, in a product launch, marketing, design, and sales teams can identify one another’s strengths. 

7. Promoting Diversity and Inclusion

A skills map promotes diversity by focusing on actual skills rather than traditional hiring biases. It focuses on what candidates can offer instead of things like their background or job titles. Skill mapping allows companies to consider people who have the right abilities.

Source: TestGorilla

8. Enabling Agility and Flexibility

Skill mapping builds agile teams by helping managers locate skills needed for specific projects quickly, adding flexibility when projects need to change. For example, if a tech startup suddenly needs skills in cybersecurity for a client project. In that case, skill mapping enables them to quickly assign the task to the employee with the relevant expertise. 

9. Encouraging Continuous Learning

The skill mapping approach promotes a culture of learning by revealing areas for growth and encouraging employees to improve themselves. For instance, Adobe uses skill mapping to help employees set learning goals and access training resources. As a result, they see high levels of engagement and innovation within their workforce. 

10. Improves the Hiring Process

Skill mapping makes hiring much easier for HR teams. By using this technique, they can identify the existing skills in their teams and the ones they still need to hire for. When a company knows exactly where skill gaps exist, they can target candidates who bring that missing skillset.

What is a Skills Mapping Exercise?

A skills mapping exercise is an organized activity where a company assesses, identifies, and records the skills of each team member. This exercise provides a clear view of the employee strengths, skill levels, and gaps within a workforce. 

The exercise is beneficial for employees who want to gain a clear view of their strengths and areas of improvement, making it easier to align their skills with career goals.

For instance, an employee can list their skills, like communication or time management, and rate each one from 1 to 5. This is one of the quickest self-evaluation examples that make it easier for anyone to make a plan for skill improvement. 

Source: StaffingPartner

How to Create a Skill Mapping Template?

To create a skill mapping template, start by outlining key areas for assessing and developing your team members’ capabilities. Identify the skills needed for each of the roles your company offers, the current skills levels and any gaps between the skills the current team members have.

With the help of this skill mapping template, you can map out and visualize skills within a team or organization. Here’s how this template should look like. You can customize this template however you want to fit specific roles and projects.

To use this template, list the name and role of each of the team members and identify current skills and proficiency levels. Now define the required skills for each role and role if there are any skill gaps within the employees. Based on the gaps, divide on steps such as training, mentorship, hiring additional resources and more. 

Skills Mapping Example

Here’s a skills mapping example for a Marketing team. 

Based on this map, team leaders can easily see the strengths and gaps and then decide to provide training, reassign roles, or bring freelance support to fill these specific skill gaps. 

A real-world example of this approach comes from Unilever, a global consumer goods company that wanted to make better use of the diverse skills of its large workforce. For this, they created an internal platform that mapped out the skills of each employee. 

This system helped match employees with projects that suited their talents, making it easier for them to work in roles where they could excel and be more productive. 

You might be surprised to know that 87% of the companies worldwide think they already have a skills gap within their organization or might have one if not there already. 

Source: Mckinsey

Create Powerful and Effective Training Programs with Coursebox.ai

Skill mapping is a valuable tool that helps you understand the strengths and skills gaps in your team. By identifying the areas that need improvement, you can provide targeted training to help your team grow and reach their full potential. 

For training, Coursebox offers companies a way to create AI-generated training videos without hassle. Our platform does the hard work for you, with AI-powered tools for creating courses, quizzes and real-time assessments. Whether you want to turn your content into engaging courses or get instant feedback with our AI assessment tool, we’re here to help you build better training programs for your employees.

Discover how our AI-powered eLearning platform can take your training to the next level. Sign up today for a free demo!

FAQs

How can you map out the skills needed for a role?

You can map out the skills required for a specific role by following these steps:

• Write down skills related to the role you’re hiring for.
• Categorize each skill as beginner, intermediate, or advanced based on the proficiency level needed for the role.
• Identify any skill gaps in your current team that the new hire will need to fill. 
• Keep updating the required skills as your team grows and keep the skills map up-to-date.

What is skill mapping?

Skill mapping is the process of identifying and analyzing the skills within a team or organization. It’s a way to document what each employee is capable of, highlighting strengths and gaps. This helps businesses match the right employee with the right tasks and ensures they have the talent to achieve their business goals.

What does a skill mapping exercise include?

A skills mapping exercise is an activity where you assess and record each team member's skills. It includes:

• Identifying required skills: Outline the key competencies essential to each role or project.
• Evaluating current skills: Assess each team member’s abilities and where their strengths lie.
• Spotting skill gaps: Identify where existing skills fall short of the requirements and highlight the areas for improvement. 

What is a competency mapping exercise?

A competency mapping exercise is similar to skill mapping but focuses more broadly on competencies that are needed to perform a particular task, including skills, knowledge, and abilities. It’s a technique the HR department uses to evaluate their employees and new candidates.