How to create a skills inventory for your organization

According to McKinsey & Company, 87% of managers and executives are concerned with existing or upcoming skills gaps in their organizations. Is this a familiar issue to you? With the looming talent and skills shortage, skills development must be a priority for all employers who want to remain competitive. Creating a skills inventory should be one of the first steps you take.

A skills inventory is a list of your employees’ skills, competencies, education, and experience. It’s a systematic approach to auditing your workforce. Employees usually conduct self-assessments or complete skills assessments assigned by the organization. Without understanding the skills your employees hold, an organization cannot align its talent with its goals.

Identifying Required Skills in an Organization

A skills inventory is going to help you determine what skills your employees have, where you have skills gaps already, and potential emerging skills gaps in the future. But for you to decide what’s important and where to focus your efforts, you need to identify exactly what skills your organization requires.

Analyze job descriptions and profiles of roles in your organization. What essential skills do these employees require? What emerging technology is there that will require new skills? Make strategic goals based on long-term projections. Liaise with stakeholders such as managers and customers to gain insights. Seek employee feedback to identify expertise that is lacking or in high demand.

Divide the skills you’re looking for into categories, such as Technical Skills, Leadership Skills, and Soft Skills. Dig deeper and create subcategories with very specific skills.

Making Assessments for Your Skills Inventory

Now you’re ready to conduct assessments and build a skills inventory. To assess, choose one or a combination of these approaches:

• Interviews – Have one-on-one discussions with individual employees to discuss the skills and competencies they use in their daily tasks and areas they’d like to improve.
• Skills Assessments – Have employees take tests to evaluate their skills and knowledge. Be mindful that this may not help identify soft skills or hands-on capabilities.
• Gamification – A more recent approach is to gamify the process. Make it fun by creating games that test different skills without making it feel like a test.
• Questionnaires/Surveys – Using questionnaires and surveys is a useful way to gain a general insight into employee skills. They’re less intense than a test or an interview.
• 360-Degree Feedback – Receive feedback from managers, co-workers, and other relevant individuals on an employee’s skills and performance to gain a holistic perspective.

Use the data you’ve gained to create a skills matrix. Organize it based on the categories and subcategories you identified earlier. You may opt to evaluate skills on a scale of 0-10. This will help you identify opportunities for development. Visit for a further breakdown with examples.

Utilizing Your Skills Inventory

A skills inventory is useful in many ways. From informing training and development programs to optimizing talent acquisition and workforce planning. Let’s discuss how you can utilize yours.

• Training & Development – Your skills inventory will identify skills gaps to guide upskilling and training plans. Creating a continuous learning culture is vital in ensuring that your employees have relevant and flexible skills.
• Talent Acquisition – Based on the information you gain from your skills inventory; you can make more informed decisions during recruitment. You’ll better understand the job’s current and future skills requirements and make data-based verdicts.
• Workforce Planning – You’ll see if your workforce is working in alignment with business objectives or if something is holding your organization back. A skills inventory can also help you identify potential leaders in your team and the need for contingent workers.
• Mobility & Restructuring – A skills inventory can give you an overall view of the organization. You’ll see the potential for internal mobility, positions that are now redundant, or strategic organizational restructuring.

How Employees Benefit from a Skills Inventory

Employers aren’t the only ones benefiting from a skills inventory. Millennials, who will soon make up most of the workforce, say that professional development opportunities are important in a job. Employees care about skills and growth.

When you create a skills inventory, you’re helping your employees understand their professional selves. While an organization must provide training opportunities, it’s also important for employees to do their own learning. You’re helping them identify relevant certificates or courses that they can do on their own.

Another thing that can be difficult to understand without assistance is a career path. Employees don’t always know what their professional trajectory can be. If they have a clearer understanding of their skills, they’ll know how to plan aligned growth.

The overarching benefit for employees is that a skills inventory can help them better understand themselves. As such, they’ll be more likely to remain at your organization when they can see a path of continuous learning that will benefit their careers. They never stop learning and you improve retention rates. It’s a win-win.

Skills for Success

A skills inventory is one solution to aligning objectives and goals with your talent’s potential. Once you’ve established it, you’ll need to regularly update and adjust the skills and data. This ongoing process is valuable for making development and recruitment plans. You remain flexible and adaptable in a market that’s constantly shifting. Remember, your talent’s skills determine your company’s success.

If you’re interested in optimizing this process with software, see Salary.com’s JobArchitect.