Why You Should be Using a Skills Matrix

When you’re planning training for your team or thinking abut recruitment, having a clear idea of your team’s skillset is essential: what’s covered, where the gaps are, and how confident each person is when it comes to the various competencies. 

While most good managers will have an idea of where the gaps are, it can be helpful to spend some time on this process: it’ll help you write better job ads and hire the person your team really needs, ensuring that you’ve got all the bases covered.

What is a skills matrix?

A skills matrix is a really useful way of evaluating your team’s skill spread. It’s a simple exercise that you can tailor to your team and organisation. You’ll use a customisable spreadsheet to map out how confident each member of your team is for each of the skills you’d like to evaluate – and, crucially, how willing each person is to learn that skill.

Why should you be using a skills matrix?

There are lots of tools out there to help you map skills this way, but the beauty of the skills matrix is in its simplicity. It’s easy to customise it to fit your team, its accessible and once you’ve got the template, it’s free to use forever.

Get help when planning training 

If you’re planning training or coaching for your team, going through the skills matrix exercise beforehand will make sure that you get the most bang for your buck when you book something in. It’ll help you identify areas where your whole team could benefit from training, or individuals who could do with one-to-one coaching in a particular area. 

Recruitment 

Whether you’re growing your team or looking to backfill the role of someone who’s leaving, it’s important to know exactly what skills you need in your new hire. Recruitment is a great opportunity to evaluate your team as a whole, and make sure the new hire fills the gap. Although it’s a simple exercise, the insights gained from the skills matrix can be really valuable: more often than not, there’s a skills gap that managers weren’t aware of, so it’s worth taking the time out to go through it.

How to get access to the skills matrix 

As a business coach and trainer, I often incorporate the skills matrix into a tailored package of support when working with organisations – usually alongside a mix of in-person and online training, one-on-one coaching, and online learning content.

If you’d like to try out the skills matrix, have a look at my 10-minute microlearning course that walks you through the process: exactly how to use it, and how you can adapt it for your team. It comes with a free customisable download of the skills matrix that you can start using straight away.

Helping businesses make the most of their team and their time is what we do best. If you’d to talk about support for your business through Evolution, get in touch or have a look a the Evolution website.