To identify skills gaps, compare your team's current capabilities against your organisation's goals and pinpoint where specific expertise is missing. Define where the business is heading, audit the skills you have now, overlay the two to find the gaps, then prioritise them and decide whether to build the skill through training or hire for it.
Last reviewed July 2026.
Key takeaways
- A thorough skills gap analysis keeps your team competitive and ready for shifts in your industry.
- Mapping work personalities helps line up natural strengths with the technical skills a role needs.
- Data-driven insight moves HR leaders past guesswork to targeted training and development.
- Revisiting your skills matrix regularly protects performance and reduces the risk of project delays.
Change at work is relentless, and skills gaps rarely announce themselves. You notice projects taking longer than they used to, or a team struggling with new technology that looked straightforward on paper. Those are often the first signs of a gap between what your people can do and what the business needs them to do.
When a gap goes unspotted, the pressure on your best people rises. They end up covering for the missing expertise, which leads to burnout and a dip in morale. Many mid-market leaders feel this when they realise their workforce planning has been reactive. By the time the gap is obvious, you are already playing catch-up. A structured approach turns that weakness into an advantage.
Before you can see what is missing, you need a clear picture of where you are going. What do the next 12 to 24 months look like for your department? Expanding into new markets or automating manual processes each calls for a particular set of skills. Start by listing your core objectives. If the goal is better customer retention, you might need stronger data analysis or better people skills in your support team.
Involve department heads at this stage so the on-the-ground reality matches the executive view. At Compono, we find it helps to describe the work activities that drive high performance, such as Evaluating, Coordinating or Pioneering, rather than relying on a job description alone. That gives you a sharper read on the people and skills you actually need.
Once you know the destination, take an honest look at your starting point. Auditing skills is tricky because people carry hidden talents that their current roles never draw on. You might have an Auditor who is exceptional with data but stuck in a role that demands constant Campaigner-style persuasion.
Use a mix of self-assessment, peer review and performance data to build a skills matrix that tracks both technical skills and behavioural traits. Look past what people do now to what they could do with the right support, because that is where the most internal growth potential usually sits. The Compono Develop module helps you map the natural work preferences and existing skills of your people, so you can see where they are thriving and where they are stretched too thin, without the bias that clouds a manual audit.
Now overlay your future needs with your current audit and the missing pieces emerge. You might find the team executes well but lacks the fresh thinking of a Pioneer, or that you have the vision but not the structured follow-through of a Coordinator.
Not every gap carries the same weight. Some are blockers that stop you reaching your primary goals, while others are useful for later. Prioritise on impact against your objectives and how hard each gap is to fill, which tells you whether to build the skill internally or hire it in. For the critical gaps that need fresh talent, Compono Hire lets you specify the work personality and skills you need, then rank candidates on how well they fill the specific gap in your team, rather than judging a CV alone.
With priorities set, you need a plan you can act on. For internal gaps, look at mentoring, online learning or stretch assignments that let staff grow into new areas. People tend to be highly motivated when they can see a clear path that lines up with the company's needs.
If a gap is too large to bridge through training alone, keep your recruitment tightly focused. Hire for the role as it needs to exist tomorrow, not as it existed three years ago. Then measure the impact of what you do, because skills gap analysis is a continuous cycle rather than a one-off. As the business changes, so do the skills it needs, and keeping a pulse on team capability means you are rarely caught off guard.
Compono maps skills and work personality across your team, so you can target training and hire for what is actually missing.
Talk to usRun a deep analysis once a year, with lighter pulse checks every six months or whenever there is a real shift in your business strategy or team structure.
A skills gap is a missing competency in your current staff. A talent gap is a shortage of people in the pipeline, or a missing personality type that matters for team balance.
Yes, and they are often the most important part. Knowing you lack an Advisor or an Evaluator can matter as much as knowing you need a software developer.
Be transparent about the purpose. The goal is to give people the training and support to succeed in their roles and grow their careers, not to find fault.