5 STEPS TO IDENTIFY AN ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS GAP, AND WHERE TO

BEGIN
As the workplace evolves, employees are being charged with learning new skills, developing old
skills, and learning to be proficient in all areas across the board.
Workplace efficiency could mean combining two jobs into one, even if a current employee lacks
a certain skill, or expanding the job role of one individual to prevent a future hire. To stay on top
in our changing world, skills testing allows employers to see where their employees stand in
reference to specific skill sets.
A recent report showed that a growing skills gap is the cause of many hiring woes and challenges
faced by recruiters. Well discuss how organizations can use workplace skills testing to help
identify current employee and team skills gaps, so that managers can prepare a plan of action to
address current and future areas of concern.
A skills gap is defined as a significant gap between an organizations skill needs and the current
capabilities of its workforce. Its the point at which the organization can no longer grow or
remain competitive because they dont have the right skills to help drive business results and
support the organizations strategies and goals. There are a some telltale signs that your
organization is facing a skills gap. These range from a mismatch between the organizations
needs and the capabilities of the workforce, a high percentage of Baby Boomers in your
organization that are soon to retire, or a growing number of high skilled, specialized jobs needed
to take the organization forward.
If your organization is suffering from some of those gaps dont worry, we have some tips to help
you get your company back onto the path of recovery and growth.
The first thing youll want to do is to see where your employees are at, when it comes to how
well they perform their jobs. A perfect way to do this is to test them. Skills testing can provide
a good benchmark, so that you can see where your employees are before you get started. Then,
you can test them again after training and development has been completed. This will also allow
you to see which employees are able to learn more quickly.
Secondly, youll want to invest in training and development. If you want to be the best
company out there, you must provide continuous training to support your initiatives. Invest in
seminars, conferences, speakers, and anything else that might help your employees be the best
they can be. Its very likely that your workplace has four generations working together, so
knowing what works best for each generation can save you time and money in providing the
right training.
Once youve provided training opportunities for your employees, youll want to create an
environment that recognizes the accomplishments and rewards learning that supports your
organizations overall strategic vision. When employees go above and beyond in their
professional development, reward them. Their initiative and drive could wind up making your
company millions.
So you may be thinking, now what? Youve established a benchmark, invested in employee
training, and rewarded their training, so what else is there left to do? Benchmark again to find
remaining deficiencies. An employee of an organization that wants to be #1 in its industry must
be able to adapt to the changing workforce and learn effectively. If your company is suffering
from a skills gap and your current workforce cant keep up with the changing dynamics, it might
be time for a change in your staff.
The last thing you must do to keep an active, strong workforce is provide the right type of
environment to keep top talent. Providing certain perks, like telecommuting and other benefits
that are comparative to others in your industry, is important. If you have top talent, hold onto
them.
Once youve provided training opportunities for your employees, youll want to create an
environment that recognizes the accomplishments and rewards learning that supports your
organizations overall strategic vision. When employees go above and beyond in their
professional development, reward them. Their initiative and drive could wind up making your
company millions.
So you may be thinking, now what? Youve established a benchmark, invested in employee
training, and rewarded their training, so what else is there left to do? Benchmark again to find
remaining deficiencies. An employee of an organization that wants to be #1 in its industry must
be able to adapt to the changing workforce and learn effectively. If your company is suffering
from a skills gap and your current workforce cant keep up with the changing dynamics, it might
be time for a change in your staff.
The last thing you must do to keep an active, strong workforce is provide the right type of
environment to keep top talent. Providing certain perks, like telecommuting and other benefits
that are comparative to others in your industry, is important. If you have top talent, hold onto
them.
There are three steps to identifying performance gaps in call center agents:
1. Create a bullet-proof monitoring form
2. Develop a companion Call Quality Guide
3. Hold frequent calibration sessions.
The Role of the Monitoring Form in Identifying Employee Performance Gaps
The trick to creating a great monitoring form is to first create a list of behaviors that you want to
hear during a call. Once you have that list, divide the behaviors into "Standards" and
"Objectives."
Employee Performance Standards
Standards describe the minimum acceptable level of performance for all reps. These behaviors
relate to the bones of the jobwhats required of every employee in every customer interaction.
If an employee doesnt meet a Standard, he or she falls below the line for acceptable perfor-
mance, and youve identified an employee performance gap. Standards are quantifiable, meaning
theyre either met or theyre notthere are no ifs, ands, or buts with Standards. Here are some
examples:
Verifies customer name and account number
Gets agreement on problem statement
Offers to send a preview package (if customer qualifies)
Asks for an order
If a team member has a performance gap around one of these critical behaviors, he or she fails
the call. If the employee accomplishes all Standards on a calleven if its not done with a lot of
skill or pizzazzthe employee meets the minimum acceptable level, and there is no employee
performance gap. Of course, you want your employees to do more than achieve the bare mini-
mum. This is where Performance Objectives come in.
Employee Performance Objectives
Performance Objectives are somewhat less distinct than Standards, and as such, are measured
more subjectively. Objectives are qualitative; they describe something you want the employee to
accomplish, but you understand it will be accomplished to different degrees depending on the
employees skill level and on the unique properties of the interaction. Whereas when measuring
Standards, you determine gaps in performance in terms of whether or not they were met, when
measuring Objectives you assess how well they were met. Here are several examples:
Builds rapport with customer
Handles challenges effectively
Exhibits strong verbal and vocal skills
Minimizes dead air
Performance Objectives are behaviors that you would expect would be done better by employees
with more experience. For example, someone just out of training would not be able to handle
challenging callers as well as someone who's been on the job for a while.
Objectives are scored on a sliding scale of 13 or 15. They are not behaviors for which you
would terminate someone's employment; they are behaviors that you hope will improve over
time with practice and coaching. You can identify and coach performance gaps in employees
who score at the low end of the scale.
How Does Differentiating Standards and Objectives Help Identify Gaps in Employee
Performance?
There are two other reasons for differentiating these two types of performance measures: consis-
tency and fairness. It should be relatively easy for all supervisors to score Standards consistently
to identify employee performance gaps because they are cut-and-dried: yes or no. But how
would you identify a gap in sounds professional? How about a gap in exhibits strong verbal
and vocal skills? Do you think everyone observing performance would agree whether or not
there was a gap?

Thats the ideal situation, but it happens less frequently than desired. Its much easier to agree on
Standards since theyre yes (the Standard was met and theres no gap in the employees perfor-
mance) or no (the Standard was not met and there is a gap in the employees performance).
Since Standards are, by definition, the minimum accepted level of performance, its obvious
when a gap occurs. These gaps must be addressed and corrected immediately.
Of course, the ideal situation is when all supervisors who listen to a call score the call the same.
That way, an employee receives consistent feedback no matter who is giving the feedback, and
the employee learns what good performance looks like. The only way for that to happen is to cre-
ate a Call Quality Guide and hold ongoing call calibration sessions with your supervisors. Stay
tuned for the second and third posts in this series to learn more about these topics.
What is an Employee Performance Gap?
A performance gap is simply when an employee does not meet one or more of your expectations,
for example: a performance gap exists when an employee

Does not meet an agreed standard of performance, or
Behaves in a way that is inconsistent with company values or code of conduct


Examples of performance Gaps
Taking excessive breaks
Turning up to work late
Not meeting the required level of productivity
Not meeting quality expectations
Not providing the required level of customer service
Not following agreed processes
Being moody and unapproachable
Being negative

This list could easily contain 100's of examples of performance gaps, however these are the more
common examples that we come accross


How to Identify a Employee Performance Gap

You can identify a performance gap through

Observation: Observing one or more of your employees behaving in a way that is inconsistent
with your expectations such as turning up late, taking excessive breaks
Measurement: Measuring work performance against a predefined standard, or measuring output
quality against a predefined standard
Reporting: reports on a persons performance such as units of work completed reports generated
for clerical workers and even financial reports
Feedback: receiving feedback from customers or internal customers about the performance of an
employee
Surveys: Surveys such as 360 degree feedback, employee engagement surveys customer
satisfaction surveys


When investigating a concern with a performance gap a leader will
Focus on the performance gap not the employee
Ensure consistency within their team (all people who behave the same are dealt with the same)
Use specific examples
Remain open minded on the employees reasons for their actions/performance
Engage the employee in defining the performance problem and the actions to improve
performance


A good way to start

If you have not done a lot of performance management, a good way to start managing
performance in your business is to brainstorm all of the undesirable behaviors in your business,
make this list as complete as you can. However, only spend 10 minutes brainstorming your list.

Then once you have the list of undesirable behaviors you can list all of the people who exhibit
these behaviors. When complete you will have a complete view of poor employee behavior in
your business.

We recommed addressing undesirable behaviors first because the undesirable behaviors tend to
be more disruptive to the rest of your team and they tend to be easy to address. When you have
addressed all undesirable behaviors in your business you will find that on the job performance
generally improves too.

Now that you have identified poor performance you will need to schedule a performance
discussion, see tips on how to prepare for a performance discussion


Also see phrasing for an employee performance discussion to learn how to present a
performance issue to your employee in a non threatening way.


Note:
Good leaders earn respect from their employees by acting early to resolve poor employee
performance. They are aware that they themselves might be the cause of the performance issue
and will be open to investigate all options.

7 Strategies for Reducing Employee Knowledge Gaps
7.10.2012
Can we all agree that the lack of knowledge about an organizations products, services, policies,
safety practices etc. is detrimental to employee performance, and ultimately affects corporate
results? How many times have you heard an employee say I didnt know I was supposed to do it
that way! when something goes wrong? Companies need a way to identify knowledge gaps,
especially in critical areas such as safety. It can seem like an overwhelming exercise, especially
when you have hundreds of thousands of employees, located in different geographic regions,
with different job functions and objectives. However, not only is it achievable, the 7 strategies
highlighted below and detailed in Axonifys Mind the Gap Whitepaper will start you in the
right direction reducing employee knowledge gaps, one employee at a time.
Strategy #1: Uncover Knowledge Gaps
The first step is to understand what your employees dont know. Using pre- and post-training
assessment techniques can be used to uncover initial gaps in knowledge. Ongoing frequent
testing and self-assessment in a fun and easy way can identify what learning has or has not
been retained before it has an adverse impact on employee performance.
Strategy #2: Uncover Application Gaps
The real measurement of both the effectiveness of training and the existence of knowledge gaps
is achieved when an organization evaluates training at Kirkpatricks level 3 and level 4. These
levels identify what learning employees are able to apply to their jobs, and the measurable
benefit the organization. Although difficult to measure, it is doable through ongoing testing, self-
assessment and supervisor assessment correlated to KPIs.
Strategy #3: Make it Relevant
Gone are one-size fits all programs that expose all employees to the same broad stroke of
information in the same manner. Every employees learning style and level of expertise is
unique, so are their knowledge gaps. Personalization is key in reducing these gaps.
Strategy #4: Make it Bite-Sized
Cognitive theory suggests that people are only able to retain about 4 items in short-term memory,
making extended information-packed training sessions a potential landmine of knowledge gaps.
By presenting knowledge in smaller, bite-sized chunks that are focused on what the employee
needs to know, make learning easier to retain and apply.
Strategy #5: Make it Fun and Interesting
Uncovering knowledge and application gaps is only the first part of the puzzle. Once you know
where you can improve knowledge gaps, you need to ensure that the learning is being absorbed
and retained. Outlined in Axonifys Mind the Gap Whitepaper, there are several strategies that
can be implemented to make training fun and interesting.
Strategy #6: Make it Worthwhile
Closing knowledge gaps means that employees must be motivated to participate in the learning
process on a continuous basis. To do this, organizations have to answer WIFM or whats in it
for me? In his articleThe Ten Ironies of Motivation, Bob Nelson, a well-known authority on
employee motivation discusses multiple aspects of this topic, and identifies that intermittent
reinforcement is a key strategy in maintaining motivation.
Strategy #7: Make it Continuous
Above all else, the key to finding and closing knowledge gaps is to ensure that learning and
evaluation are done on a continuous basis. The challenge in training is that as soon as a learning
event ends, information retention immediately begins to degrade, unless it can be continually
reinforced until used. Interval Reinforcement is a way to make it continuous.