How To Address Competency Gaps With Your Employees

A pervasive issue within many businesses is unconscious incompetence. This means when an individual lacks specific skills or knowledge, but isn't aware of it. How can you discover and correct a competency gap within your team? Here are some tips to guide you:

Re-design training programs.

Specifically online training tools for employees, ensure that it's not just static content for them to rapidly click through. Each team member has a unique learning style with different knowledge and experiences. Re-shape your programs so that they are more adaptive to each employee. And when there's information that challenges them, they can receive more support.

Promote a culture of continuous improvement.

Try to keep a record of past errors made by team members. You can use this private information to determine where there are gaps in competency. Then, you can appropriately train your employees with this knowledge. From this, your team will be more aware of what they don't actually know. As well, team members will feel more comfortable acknowledging mistakes.Source: HBR