How to identify skills gaps in your team for better results

To identify skills gaps in your team, work through five steps: watch for the everyday warning signs, anchor against your goals for the next 12 to 18 months, map who covers the eight ways of work, look past technical skills to work behaviours, then decide whether to train, hire or redistribute. Here is how to run each step.

Last reviewed July 2026.

One scope note before you start: this guide is about spotting gaps at team level, day to day. If you need the formal, documented version (scored, benchmarked and ready to take to the board), that is a different exercise, and we have a separate step-by-step guide on how to conduct a skills gap analysis. Do the spotting first; it tells you whether the formal process is worth running.

Step 1: Watch for the everyday warning signs

Skills gaps get treated as a future problem, something for the next annual review or hiring round. In reality they show up every single day: missed deadlines, frustrated employees, and a team that feels busy without being productive. The most expensive sign is quieter still, your high performers burning out because they are covering for missing expertise.

If two or more of those are familiar, you have a gap. The next four steps tell you where it is.

Step 2: Anchor to your goals, not your history

You cannot identify a gap without a destination. Look at your business objectives for the next 12 to 18 months. Launching a new product, lifting customer retention and entering a new market each demand different capabilities. Write down what the goal actually requires people to do, then compare it with what your team spends its time doing now. The distance between those two lists is your gap, stated in plain terms.

Step 3: Map the eight ways of work

At Compono we have spent over a decade researching high-performing teams, and that research points to eight work activities that teams need covered: Doing, Auditing, Helping, Advising, Pioneering, Campaigning, Evaluating and Coordinating. Teams do not need eight people; they need all eight activities covered between the people they have.

Plot your team against those eight and the white space becomes obvious. If your goal is innovation but everyone clusters around Doing and Auditing, you have a Pioneering and Campaigning gap regardless of what the resumes say. The free work personality assessment (four questions, about two minutes) maps each person onto the framework, and seeing the whole team on one wheel makes the gap visible rather than theoretical. That visibility is what gets a new hire or a training budget approved.

Step 4: Look past technical skills

Resumes tell you what someone has done, not how they naturally work. Some people are built to scrutinise detail (your Auditors), others to sell a vision (your Campaigners). Both are vital and they serve different purposes. Many "skills gaps" turn out to be behaviour gaps: the team has the technical knowledge but nobody who naturally coordinates, or advises, or pushes into new territory. Testing technical skills alone will miss that entirely.

Step 5: Decide whether to train, hire or redistribute

Once the gap is visible you have three levers, and the right mix depends on urgency:

• Train when someone already shows a natural preference for the missing activity. A person who leans toward Advising but lacks formal leadership training is a development opportunity, not a hiring brief. This is where Compono Develop turns the gap into a plan with visible progress.
• Hire when the gap is too large or too urgent to grow internally. Be precise: if execution is the problem, you do not need "a good hire", you need a Coordinator or a Doer, and your selection process should score for that.
• Redistribute when the capability exists but sits in the wrong place. Sometimes the fix is moving work toward the person whose natural strengths match it, at no extra cost.

Whichever lever you pull, data changes the tone of the conversation. Instead of "you aren't performing", you can say "the team needs more strength in strategic planning, and your analytical skills make you a great fit for that path". People join the solution rather than defending themselves.

Frequently asked questions

What are the signs of a skills gap in a team?

Missed deadlines, rework, a team that feels busy but not productive, and high performers burning out from covering for missing expertise. If the same type of work keeps stalling, the capability for it probably is not in the team.

How often should we check for skills gaps?

Run a deliberate check at least once a year, and again whenever business strategy shifts. Ongoing monitoring through a people intelligence platform catches gaps between formal reviews.

Can personality assessments help identify skills gaps?

Yes. Technical tests measure knowledge, while work personality assessments reveal gaps in work behaviours such as coordination, advising or innovation. Many team gaps are behavioural rather than technical, so you need both views.

Should I train existing staff or hire to close a gap?

Train when someone already shows a natural preference for the missing activity and the timeline allows it. Hire when the gap is urgent or too large to grow internally, and be specific about the work personality the team is missing.