How to Identify Competency Gaps in Your Organization

The success of an organization depends on a competent team of workers. Employees need a certain level of knowledge and skills in order to complete work tasks effectively. Find out how competence enhances your organization, how to identify competency gaps within your team, and how to fill gaps with training and development.   

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What are competency gaps?

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines competencies as "the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors that contribute to individual and organizational performance [1]." Competency gaps occur when employees lack some of the competencies necessary to do their jobs and help the organization reach its goals. 

Read more: Three Trends Shaping Learning and Development in Professional Services for 2025

Common types of competency gaps

Before you begin identifying competency gaps in your organization, it helps to know what types occur regularly. Explore some examples of competency gaps common to many organizations:

Workplace skills:

• Collaboration

• Critical thinking

• Customer service

• Management and supervision

• Negotiation

• Problem-solving

• Verbal and written communication

Technical skills:

• Coding

• Cybersecurity

• Data analytics

• Sales and marketing

• Mobile app or web design

How competence affects organizational success

When the knowledge and skills of employees match up with organizational goals and objectives, companies experience a variety of positive benefits. Common benefits of a competent staff include:

• Higher quality of work

• Greater productivity 

• More efficient operations

• Improved morale

• Enhanced job satisfaction

• Better talent management

• Less employee turnover

How to identify competency gaps

When you learn how to identify competency gaps, you'll be able to determine which areas in your organization need strengthening. To find these areas, consider the following strategies:

Define organizational goals and needs

To begin identifying competency gaps, define your organizational goals and determine what kind of skills and knowledge can help meet these goals. When you have a clear definition of your goals and needs, you'll have an easier time determining your employee's current strengths and competencies that need improvement. 

Conduct skills assessments and audits

Direct supervisors make good sources when assessing workers' skills. Conduct verbal interviews with supervisors to find out where employees need to build knowledge and skills. You can also ask them to fill out skills gap analysis worksheets, ranking skills by level of importance and ranking employees' levels of competency for each skill using a range of numbers.    

Give employee performance reviews

Employees also provide a good source of information when conducting a skills assessment. During annual performance reviews, ask employees about their strengths and weaknesses regarding work skills and knowledge. Documenting answers will allow you to create a skills assessment database for training and development purposes. 

Use data analytics software

By adopting data analytics software, you can quickly and efficiently identify skill gaps within your company by analyzing data like employee feedback, engagement levels, performance reviews, and training records. This software can also help spot trends in employee performance and development to prevent future skills gaps.

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How to implement competency-based training and development

When you can correctly identify your organization's competency gaps, you're equipped to create a training and development program to help fill them. To implement your training and development program, it helps to have a plan that involves company stakeholders, upper management, and middle management. When everyone knows the plan, you raise your chances for success. Try these tips:

Design tailored training programs

Once you've conducted your competency gap analysis, you'll learn that your employees have differing skill levels. To help address this issue, consider tailoring training and development programs to each employee or department. This way, your employees will get the skills and knowledge your organization needs and you won't waste valuable resources providing unnecessary training.

Hire and train from inside your organization

Promoting employees from inside your organization to senior-level positions can help you save time and money on recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding. Then, you can design a customized training program to match the skills and knowledge you need. Promoting from within offers the added benefit of boosting employee morale and retention.

Foster a culture of continuous learning

Companies with work cultures that emphasize continuous learning experience have at least four key advantages as compared to companies that don't focus on learning:

• They bring products and services to market more quickly.

• They're more prepared for consumer demand.

• They create products and services of greater quality.

• They have higher productivity rates.

To foster a learning culture, demonstrate good leadership behavior, introduce in-house mentoring and peer coaching, emphasize constructive feedback, and provide resources for learning.

Consider a blended learning program

Blended learning has become a popular choice among a younger employee set. A blended learning program offers a variety of learning options, including:

• Books, manuals, or trade publications

• Informational staff meetings

• In-person and online courses

• On-the-job training or coaching

• Participation in online communities

• Seminars and workshops

Evaluate your training and development program, and revise it as needed.

After implementing your competency-based training and development program, evaluate it regularly and revise procedures that need improvement or refining. This will help keep the program successful and ensure a well-trained staff. For effective evaluation of your program, conduct employee and supervisor interviews and gather data through employee surveys. 

Getting started with Coursera

A competent team can help ensure the success of your organization through higher employee morale, greater productivity, and job retention. Now that you've learned about strategies for building a competent team, consider turning to Coursera as a valuable resource for filling competency gaps.

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