Recently there was an article in the McKinsey Quarterly titled 'Identifying employee skill gaps'. The article is explores an optimal method to analyze skill gaps within and organizations and aims at focusing training programs on specific regions, management levels and employees. Doing this definitely saves a lot of training dollars by concentrating them on areas which actually need them.
This is indeed a the right way to go about analyzing the skill gaps in an organization. However, going one step further, in my experience, I have come to realize that when a skill gap assessment is announced, many employees subconsciously treat it as an appraisal of sorts. If there is a peer review of capabilities it almost sounds like a 360 appraisal.
To avoid these side effects, I would recommend that:
1. The motive of the exercise is communicated very well to the employees highlighting the fact that this is not an appraisal and the results will be used only to assign trainings.
2. Immediate superiors should not be involved in assessing skill gaps to avoid skewed reviews. Once people around the organizations know that their day-to-day managers will not be involved in the process, any attempt at collusion or artificially inflating or deflating the skills will be greatly reduced.
Competitor reactions need to be considered and factored into analytical equations before making strategic business decisions. Similarly, possible stakeholder reactions also need to be thought of and factored into before any mass strategic announcement is made to them. Every statement invites reactions and risks and some of them need to be hedged.
