Key Takeaways
- Most skill gaps are only identified after they cause failure—by then, you're doing triage instead of prevention
- Look beyond outcomes to observe HOW work gets done, not just whether it succeeded
- Track recurring questions and mistakes—patterns reveal where training or resources are needed
- Ask team members directly where they lack confidence—they usually know where they're struggling
By the time a skill gap shows up in performance reviews, it's already a problem. Projects have struggled. Deadlines have slipped. Customer complaints have accumulated. Colleagues have quietly picked up the slack.
The gap has been costing you—you just didn't see it until the damage was done.
Most organizations only notice skill gaps reactively. Something goes wrong, someone underperforms, and then everyone scrambles to figure out what training would have helped. By then, you're doing triage instead of prevention.
There's a better approach: identify gaps before they become problems. It's not complicated, but it requires looking in the right places and asking the right questions.
Start with What the Role Actually Requires
You can't identify gaps without knowing what "full capability" looks like. This isn't the job description—that's often outdated or generic. This is what someone actually needs to be able to do, based on how the work really happens.
If you can't articulate this clearly, start there. Talk to your best performers. What do they know that others don't? What can they do that newer people struggle with? Document this. It becomes your baseline. This process of capturing expert knowledge benefits both training and AI systems.
Look at the Work, Not Just the Outcomes
Outcomes tell you whether something went well or poorly. They don't always tell you why. A project might succeed despite skill gaps because other team members compensate. A project might fail for reasons unrelated to skills.
To find skill gaps, you need to observe how work actually happens.
- When someone completes a task, how did they approach it? Did they struggle with parts that should have been straightforward?
- Did they take much longer than expected?
- When someone presents their work, what questions can't they answer? Where does their confidence drop?
- When someone faces a new challenge, do they have frameworks for figuring it out, or are they stuck without explicit instructions?
The work itself—not just the final outcome—reveals where capability is strong and where it's thin.
Ask People Directly
This seems obvious, but it's often skipped. People generally know where they're struggling. They know what makes them anxious. They know where they're faking it.
But they won't volunteer this information unless you create space for it. In one-on-ones, ask:
- "What parts of your job do you feel least confident about?"
- "Where do you find yourself needing help most often?"
- "If you could get training on anything, what would be most valuable?"
The framing matters. This isn't about catching deficiencies—it's about supporting development. If people feel like admitting gaps will hurt them, they won't admit them.
Watch for Recurring Questions and Mistakes
Patterns tell you more than individual instances.
If the same question keeps coming up from different people, that's a knowledge gap. The information either doesn't exist, isn't accessible, or wasn't learned.
If the same mistake keeps happening, that's a skill gap. People aren't doing something correctly, despite presumably having been trained on it.
Track these patterns. Over time, this list becomes a map of where training or resources are needed. Understanding what your HR ticket queue reveals can surface systemic knowledge gaps.
Check What Changed Recently
Skill gaps often emerge after something changes. New tool? The old skills don't fully transfer. New process? Habits built over years need to be replaced. New role? Someone got promoted and has skills from their old role, but hasn't developed what's needed for the new one.
After any significant change, explicitly ask: What new capabilities does this require? Do people have them? If not, how will they develop them?
Use Assessments Strategically
Assessments can surface gaps you wouldn't otherwise see.
Knowledge assessments test whether people know what they should know. Good for compliance or foundational knowledge.
Skill demonstrations ask people to actually perform tasks. More effort, but higher validity. You see what they can do, not just what they think they can do. AI-powered practice can scale this assessment approach.
360-degree feedback gathers input from colleagues. Useful for behavioral skills that are hard to assess directly.
Don't over-engineer it—a simple assessment done regularly is more useful than a comprehensive one done never.
The Shadow Network: Look at who people ask for help. Informal help-seeking patterns reveal a lot about where expertise lives—and where it's missing. If everyone goes to the same person with questions about a topic, that person has skills others lack. If people frequently seek help outside their immediate team, that suggests gaps in local capability.
When You Find Gaps, Act on Them
Identifying gaps is only valuable if you do something about them.
- Some gaps can be closed with training.
- Some can be closed with experience—stretch assignments, shadowing.
- Some require hiring or restructuring.
Skill gaps will always exist. You can't have a team with perfect capability for every situation. But you can see the gaps before they cause failures, and address them while there's still time.
Identify early. Act early. Problems that never happen are the best kind.
JoySuite helps you spot gaps and close them. Training that verifies understanding, not just completion. Knowledge that's accessible when people need it. Visibility into what your team knows—and what they don't.
