A skilled workforce is the main ingredient in organizational success and growth. Highly trained and experienced employees can complete more complex tasks faster, increasing productivity and higher satisfaction.
Developing the current workforce’s skill set is crucial for companies to remain competitive and an attractive employer in the ever-changing business environment.
But how exactly do you know the status of the skills and competencies your workforce has or needs?
Now you know why you need a skill matrix.
By mastering the use of a skills matrix, you can take charge of identifying available skills, finding gaps, and proactively addressing them before they become an issue. This tool empowers you to make informed decisions that shape the future of your workforce.
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A skills matrix is a visual record of employees' current and required skills within a team, department, and organization.
The skills matrix, also known as a competency matrix, is a grid that helps HR, Learning, and Development managers map the available skills and their levels. This graphic tool enables leaders to make data-driven decisions and allocate resources where necessary. The term' skills matrix' is often used broadly, while 'competency matrix' may refer to specific skills related to a particular job or task.
The skills matrix provides crucial data for effective management, planning tasks, and tracking works to achieve organizational goals.
The rapidly evolving technologies and automation of the HR process allow companies to make more strategic and future-oriented decisions based on accurate data.
Mapping the skills of your team or entire workforce provides a clear and focused picture of your staff’s skills, competencies, and expertise. This clarity guides your decisions and actions, ensuring you are constantly moving towards your organizational goals.
By visualizing the data, you can focus the discussions on whether your employees have the required skills or whether you should bring new talent on board to complete a project and achieve the company's overall goals.
The insights from the skills matrix help you manage and optimize your teams and projects easily while planning resources for the long run.
When used correctly, the skills matrices help HR and L&D departments to:
The skills matrix benefits your whole organization, each team, employee, and even your clients.
Identify the skills gaps
A skills matrix helps you understand if your current workforce has the basic skill set and competencies to fulfill the tasks, meet deadlines, and complete a project.
The skills matrix provides valuable data on the available skills and highlights the skills your workforce lacks.
By comparing the current level against the level you want to reach, you can identify your organization's skills gap. This critical information helps you plan training programs to bridge that gap.
Better resources allocation
Once you identify your in-house skills and areas for improvement, it is much easier to allocate your resources when and where you need them most. This efficiency ensures that your resources are always optimally utilized, enhancing your team's productivity and success.
For example, if a task or project requires employees with certain knowledge and competencies, a skills matrix helps you plan your resources, deliver expected learning and development programs, or redistribute internal talent to meet deadlines and achieve success.
Improved recruitment & hiring process
Finding a candidate with the right set of skills can be time and energy-consuming for HR professionals.
The skills matrix shows you what skills you have lost when an employee leaves your company. By visualizing the skills landscape of the whole organization, the HR department can make data-driven hiring decisions, recruiting candidates with the required abilities to fill the gaps and improve teamwork.
Tailored training programs
The Skills Matrix is an excellent tool for HR and Learning and development professionals to establish customized training programs for their employees.
Self-evaluation and skills matrices pinpoint the employees’ knowledge gaps and weaknesses. From this point, you can create and provide targeted training programs that help employees accomplish their performance goals.
Better performance management
To remain highly productive and competitive, companies must consistently evaluate their workforce performance. The performance review is an opportunity to exchange feedback, set achievable goals, and customize growth plans to address specific areas.
A skills matrix is a great starting point for assessing performance. It provides a clear image of employees' skills and competencies and their gaps.
Facilitates learning and training
Employees are a company’s most valuable resource. Investing in their professional growth is crucial for enhanced individual and organizational outcomes.
Since the skills matrix is a score-based system that grades employees' experience, you can track the distinct evolutions of your team members. This visualization helps you to create learning and training paths for those who fall behind to improve their contribution to the team's goals.
Workforce planning and internal mobility
When an employee falls sick or leaves your workforce on short notice, the entire team suffers a skills shortage that can disrupt the typical workflow. Recruiting, hiring, and onboarding a new candidate with the proper skill set is time and resource-consuming.
A solid skills matrix helps you identify potential substitutes for the existing employees. Thus, you can avoid understaffing and maintain productivity and continuity while saving money.
Building a practical skills matrix helps you identify and correct the deficits. Here are the main steps to develop a skills matrix for your team or organization.
Step 1. Identify the skills your organization needs
The first step in creating a skills matrix is determining the skills your teams need to complete future projects. Gather inputs from team leaders, HR managers, and, more importantly, from employees who have successfully worked on similar projects previously.
In this stage, refrain from distinguishing between current and desired skill sets, but you can categorize them by role, project, or department. Separate hard from soft skills and try to narrow down the list to include the most relevant skills for the project.
Step 2. Define the focus of the skills matrix
The broad goal of the skills matrix is to support employee development in alignment with the company's strategic objectives.
For your matrix to be highly efficient, you must define its organizational, departmental, project, or role-based focus.
Step 3. Establish the skills matrix structure and scoring system
The next step is establishing a rating system that helps you evaluate employees' skills comprehensively and objectively.
You can create your custom system or adapt one of the most popular ones to your needs.
3-Point Scale | 1. Beginner |
2. Proficient | |
3. Expert |
5-Point Scale | 1. No experience |
2. Trained | |
3. Can work with supervision | |
4. Can work independently | |
5. Can train others |
10-Point Scale | 1. No experience |
2. Novice | |
3. Beginner | |
4. Good | |
5. Intermediate | |
6. Very good | |
7. Proficient | |
8. Advanced | |
9. Expert | |
10. Outstanding |
Step 4. Assess each employee’s current level of skills
You should collect data about each employee's skills status during this step.
There are various methods to consider when assessing your employees. Here are the most popular ones:
Step 5. Include the data in the matrix
The final step is to write down the data collected in the last step.
You can create a basic skills matrix by using an Excel table:
Implementing or improving the skills management system positively impacts every aspect of your organization. Here is a variety of best practices you can choose from to gain the maximum from your skills matrix.
Explore various skills matrices
Before implementing the skills matrix, consider various approaches and identify the one that fits your workforce and organizational needs.
Align the skills matrix with the employee development plan
When employees have a clear picture of their skill levels, they can visualize the progress toward accomplishing their professional goals.
Asses hard and soft skills equally
While it may be tempting to focus solely on your workforce’s technical skills, including soft skills in your matrix is crucial, as both types are essential for your business.
Engage stakeholders in the process
Involve as many stakeholders as possible, from HR and L&D managers to team leaders and employees. Communicating the skills matrix's purpose and benefits will boost their engagement and motivation to give their best input.
Use a skills matrix program.
You can find numerous specialized software that help you collect more comprehensive data and get an insightful image of your workforce skill set.
While the skills matrix is an excellent method to identify your workforce’s competencies, when incorrectly built and used, it can burden managers and employees.
Here are the most common pitfalls to avoid when crafting your skills matrix:
When creating a skills matrix, it is crucial to consider the specifics of the company, department, or project. Without assessing the right skills, your matrix will not accomplish its mission.
Your skills matrix is a fluctuating document. You should update it when changes occur within your company, department, or team. You should also reassess the skills when an employee leaves or you create new positions.
One of the biggest mistakes is overcomplicating your skills matrix. Keep it simple yet relevant, and avoid adding too many columns and categories.
An efficient skills matrix helps you also identify the gaps in your workforce’s skills. By failing to use the matrix to address and fill those gaps, you miss a huge opportunity to create targeted learning and development programs.
It is essential to include future career paths when mapping out your workforce’s skills. By doing so, employees can see their current skill levels and areas for improvement to achieve their professional goals.
It is a common mistake to over-rely on someone’s job title instead of their actual skills. Just because the title says “manager” or “director” doesn’t mean the person holding that position has leadership skills. Avoid focusing on the job title; instead, rely more on what an individual can do.
A skills matrix template simplifies the process of identifying employees’ skill levels and gaps and planning future training. This template is a powerful tool for HR and managers to monitor workforce skills in a structured way.
Employees | Skills | |||||
Teamwork | Communication | Decision Making | Problem solving | Adaptability | Planning | |
Employee A | 5 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 4 |
Employee B | 2 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 1 |
Employee C | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 2 |
Employee D | 1 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 5 |
Employee E | 4 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 |
Total | 15 | 18 | 16 | 15 | 19 | 17 |
Average | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
Scoring system | 1 Training required | 2 Currently trained | 3 Basic complete | 4 Skilled enough | 5 Can train others | |
Team members | Roles | Project Management Skills Matrix | |||||||
Agile | Six Sigma | Microsoft Office | Presentation | Testing | Communication | ||||
Employee A | Project manager | 5 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 | ||
Employee B | Team leader | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 5 | ||
Employee C | Team member | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | ||
Employee D | Team member | 1 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | ||
Employee E | Analyst | 5 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 | ||
Total | 16 | 15 | 23 | 17 | 13 | 21 | |||
Scoring system | 1 Basic | 2 Novice | 3 Sufficient | 4 Advanced | 5 Expert | ||||
Team members | Roles | HR Skills Matrix | |||||
Recruiting | Payroll | Reporting | Coaching | Budgeting | Communication | ||
Employee A | Business Partner | 2 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
Employee B | HR manager | 5 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 4 |
Employee C | Recruitment specialist | 5 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
Employee D | HR Analyst | 1 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Employee E | Career Counseling | 1 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 |
Total | 14 | 10 | 23 | 15 | 17 | 22 | |
Scoring | 1 No competence | 2 Low competence | 3 Some competence | 4 High competence | 5 Expert |
What is the difference between a skills matrix and a competencies matrix?
A skills matrix encompasses technical, job-related abilities, while the competencies matrix refers to the technical and soft skills required to hold a position.
What should you include in the skills matrix?
A fundamental matrix might include teamwork, communication, decision-making, problem-solving, adaptability, and planning skills. A more specific skills matrix may cover marketing, testing, recruiting, budgeting, and reporting skills.
How often should you update your skills matrix?
You should update your skills matrix when significant changes occur in job roles, positions, or business objectives. Regular updates, at least annually, can lead to an accurate representation of your workforce’s skill levels.
Why use a skills matrix?
A skills matrix helps company decision-makers manage and allocate skills efficiently, spot skills gaps, and avoid interruptions that could affect productivity and overall business outcomes.
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