Identifying skills is essential when hiring staff or you’ll find yourself with people whose knowledge, skills and attitudes (skills) do not meet those you require to get the best performance.
If you don’t have a job specification and job description that is accurate for each type of job within your organization, you are probably underperforming. A job specification details the skills required to do a job and the job description details the person required for a job. Once you have a clear idea of what skills and person you need for each job, you can make successful hiring decisions based on that information.
What do you do when existing staff do not have all the skills you need or you have to hire someone whose skills are different from those you need? You do a skills audit to identify the gap between the skills needed and the skills available. This is best done as part of a comprehensive training needs assessment.
Every organization should look at its skills and performance at least annually and if funds are available, complete at least a skills audit. If possible and practicable, a full training needs assessment (TNA) should be done.
With a TNA you take a much broader, deeper look at your organizational performance, skills sets held and any gaps that exist and then you are in a perfect position to provide the training needed to improve skills and subsequently improve performance.
Neglect regular skills audits and you may find that the skills your staff has become further and further away from the skills they need. As policies and procedures, software, legislation and so on change, so should the skills of the people you trust to make your organization a success.
Robin
HR Consultant
“Think success - Achieve success”
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