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.


here 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.
This blog post will address the first issue: How to create a bullet-proof monitoring form to aid in evaluating
gaps in employees performance.
The Role of the Monitoring Form in Identifying Employee Perfor-
mance Gaps
The trick to creating a great monitoring form is to first create a list of behaviors that you want to hear dur-
ing 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 performance, and youve identified
an employee performance gap. Standards are quantifiable, meaning theyre either met or theyre not
there 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 minimum. This is where Performance Objec-
tives 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 termi-
nate 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: consistency
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 Stan-
dards since theyre yes (the Standard was met and theres no gap in the employees performance) 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 create a Call Quality Guide
and hold ongoing call calibration sessions with your supervisors. Stay tuned for the sec-
ond 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.