What is a skills Matrix?

A tool for mapping desirable and required competences for a team or project is referred to a competency or skills matrix. It is a grid that displays the team's available and required skills. As a result, it is an essential tool for any HR professional, team or company leader, project manager, or other individual in charge of staff development.

What are the benefits?

Download your free Microsoft Excel Skills Matrix now

A Skills Matrix is an essential business tool used to identify and develop the skills of team members.

The skills matrix is incredibly simple to setup and use. When shared with your team, you create a 'shared ownership' for team development - an attribute of nearly all successfull teams and organisations.

The skills matrix is a simple grid that shows:

- Team Members (down the left)
- Skills / Competencies (along the top)
- Rating (for each team member, against each skill)

Advanced skills matrices like this one available at excelskillsmatrix.com also enable you to set target/future ratings, which is a great way of setting and committing to team development over time.

Download a free MS Excel Skills Matrix

The advantages of using a skills matrix are numerous and can be divided into three main categories, namely;

Employees

Creating a clear framework of development for your employees is key to becoming a high performing team manager. Investing in the people within your charge is one of the greatest signs of respect a manager can have towards their team members. Here are just a handful of benefits you can expect to see:

Employee Benefits from a Skills Matrix

Increased competencies and a sense of commitment to their work and growth
Reduced stress levels due to an increase in work competencies that eliminates ambiguity
Complete understanding of what their "job" entails, including the necessary skills and competencies
Full understanding of the development areas needed and where to concentrate their training efforts
Can be utilized in some organizations' personal development plans for employees (PDP)
Employees benefit from better self-awareness of their own skills and flaws.
Aid in recognizing the contribution they provide to the company (which in turn can boost morale)

Download your FREE matrix

Customers

Customers immediately gain from prompt, more precise responses to their requests and preferences. Customers tell others that you are a capable, simple-to-do company with the proper outcomes. Additionally, customers are considerably more likely to come back and do business with you again. The customer should be mainly unaware that a skills matrix even exists. However, the client will gain from the higher levels of expertise of your team and their capacity to answer questions quickly and on the spot (avoiding the "I'll call you back" scenario). Simply told, there are countless advantages; some of which include:

Customers Benefits from a Skills Matrix

Increased response times (decreased lead times)
a rise in service or product quality rates (reduced defect and return rates)
A quicker workforce can produce 'faster to market' goods and services as a result of increased staff competences.
Customers feel appreciated, valued and respected
Customers have a very simple and seamless transaction with the business.

Download your FREE matrix

The business

Knowing where you are weak in capabilities will help your firm save time and money. As you switch people between important projects or teams, a skills matrix can assist you in identifying individuals who have knowledge or skill gaps and help you to arrange and prioritise training needs.

It is simple to determine which abilities and/or competencies are necessary to carry out a specific process using a skills matrix.
Assume that, in order to ensure continuity, you require at least three employees to be able to perform a given operation, such as perform due-diligence on a new client or to operate a specific piece of software. You can quickly determine if you are meeting this need thanks to the visual layout of a skills matrix, but more significantly, you can take action, with the peace of mind that you are focusing and prioritising training needs in the most efficient way.

Your Business Benefits from a Skills Matrix

Provides function or business owners, managers, and others the ability to comprehend the skill strengths and limitations of personnel who report to them.
Increased capacity - Businesses can release real capacity into their operations without paying the high expenses of recruitment by solving skills shortages and enhancing staff competencies.
Enables searching for desired skills and talents throughout the organization (e.g. to help fill a role or to assist with either short or long term increased requirements of a task from an end-client).
Team Managers and even the Senior Leadership Teams (SLTs) can identify areas of skill strength and weakness by getting a consolidated view of skills and skills gaps across the entire organisation.
Enables effective planning for the future based on anticipated employee availability.
When implemented throughout the company, management consistency helps move an organization ahead.
Customers who receive high-quality goods or services are more likely to recommend your business and return for more.
Customers' levels of loyalty rise when they receive a superior product or service.

Download your FREE matrix

So. How do you build and implement a skills matrix?

We've got you coverred! The form below must be filled out in order to download our free solution.
We've made a brief movie to demonstrate how it functions for you. Simply complete your team with the necessary skills, and then rate each team member according to their current proficiency level.

Download your free skills matrix template.

Name

What to achieve

I accept the Terms of Service

Download my free Excel Skills Matrix

Thank you! Your message has been sent.

Unable to send your message. Please fix errors then try again.

Why do we give away the matrix for free?

We are, in part, a research organisation aiming to identify the most effective ways to raise individual and team performance.

For research on the skills matrix, we spoke with about 40,000 firms and professionals in 2019 (pre-Covid). Although an updated report is currently being prepared, we advise downloading the current version to learn more about our conclusions. Several notable business leaders from successful organizations assisted us with our research, including

Download The Report