A skills matrix is a tool that categorizes and assesses the skills and competencies of team members for various projects. It enables training managers to create a structured visualization of the skill landscape within a team.

This helps them understand each employee’s capabilities, identify and close the skills gaps, track progress, streamline decision making and target training efforts for optimized team performance.

The outcome? Successful project execution that empowers an organization to build a robust workforce and achieve its goals.

This article delves into five powerful tips for creating and leveraging a skills matrix to help an organization perform effective resource management for positive project outcomes.

5 Steps to Create and Leverage a Skills Matrix

1. Outline the Skills Required for the Project

Training professionals should identify and determine specific skills required for a particular project.

To do this, connecting with team leads and employees who’ve worked on similar projects is a good idea. The skills should strictly reflect what is necessary for the project. This can help create an accurate list without the addition of irrelevant skills.

For instance, if the training manager aims to train team members for a cloud contact center, skills should include:

• Chat and email response management.
• Call management.
• Social media interaction.

Skills like face-to-face customer interaction or manual document handling would be irrelevant for a digital-based cloud contact center.

2. Establish a Skills Scoring Matrix

Next, training managers require a system that allows them to score the employees’ skills.

They can create a customized skills matrix rating system or choose from popular scales like the Likert Scale. This rating system is used in questionnaires to assess the candidate’s opinions, perceptions, or attitudes.

Here are some examples of different scales and their uses:

3. Assess Each Employee’s Skill Levels

Analyzing the skill levels of each employee can boost the effectiveness of the skills matrix. For this, implementing a variety of assessment methods can be helpful.

Here are a few methods to consider:

• Review previous performance reports. Quantitative, measurable reports on employee productivity, goal progress, sales, etc. provide valuable insights into an employee’s historical work performance and abilities.
• Other data points. Look for other data that reflects employee skill levels such as customer surveys, call analyses and complaints or kudos to help determine strengths and areas of focus.
• Employee self-evaluation. Asking employees to self-evaluate their skills leads to a better understanding of their ability to confidently perform a task.
• Feedback from managers. First-hand feedback from managers can help determine which skills have been mastered and which need more development.

Irrespective of the evaluation methods, training managers should follow the rating scale to assign scores to team member’s competency based on the skills assessment.

4. Evaluate Each Team Member’s Interest Level

Assessing and integrating every team member’s interest level can be a valuable addition to the skills matrix. Understanding employees’ professional interests can help training managers tailor training programs, thereby shaping their team’s career trajectories.

To do this, training managers can create a list of skills required for the project. Next, they can invite each teammate to express their level of interest in each skill. This can help the training manager analyze each teammate’s professional aspirations.

There’s no need to build a complicated rating system for this purpose. Trainers can simply put questionnaires with clear options varying from “No interest in this skill” to “Highly interested in this skill.”

This practice can empower trainers to analyze and prioritize training strategies.

5. Arrange and Visualize Your Information in a Matrix

The final step is to arrange the gathered assessment data into a skills matrix. This can be done using a simple table highlighting each employee’s skills and interest levels.

Here’s a skills matrix template:

Once it’s done, training managers can review the table and determine whether the team has the right skills to work on specific projects.

For instance, consider a tech website development project for which the training manager needs the right resources. For this, they should evaluate employees’ skills, such as web development, web design and programming language.

Here’s how training managers can create a skills matrix.

Skill Interest Levels: 1. Interested  2. No Interest

Skill Proficiency: 1. No Knowledge 2. Novice 3. Intermediate 4. Proficient 5. Expert

According to the working professionals’ skills and interests, Ava and Bruno are strong candidates for this project.

The skills matrix can help training professionals strategically allocate resources while ensuring positive project outcomes.

Summing It Up

A skills matrix can prove a game-changer for organizations.

It can empower training managers to maximize the impact of training programs by creating the right strategies and utilizing their resources effectively to ensure peak performance. All they need to do is leverage appropriate rating scales and assessment methods.

In short, a skills matrix is more than just a tool; it is the fuel to drive an organization’s long-term success.