How to Combat Skill Misalignment on Your IT/IS Team with Skill Sonar
How to Combat Skill Misalignment on Your IT/IS Team with Skill Sonar
As a technology leader, you can take steps to eliminate skill misalignment and reduce your attack surface. Keep reading to find out key indicators of “right person, wrong seat” and how INE’s Skill Sonar (skill assessments) can help.
In a report from Lorman, 59% of employees claim they had no workplace training and that most of their skills were self-taught. That means, potentially, 6 people on a 10-person team may not have skills that meet their role.
Skill misalignment is as simple as the right person in the wrong seat, but the consequences can be disastrous in technology. From reduction in job satisfaction and employee retention to potential security breaches due to error, the ramifications of not having visibility into the skillsets of everyone on your team are costly.
The Effects of Skill Misalignment on Job Satisfaction
Skill misalignment means that the employee is an excellent fit for your organization and culture, but their skills don’t align with their current role. When this misalignment happens, the employee will likely demonstrate reduced productivity and efficiency because they don’t fully understand what’s required of them. When your employee feels like they are spinning their wheels and doing the work with little success, this can lead to rapid burnout.
A side effect of limited personal successes is that their career growth becomes stunted. Leaders have to make performance-based decisions, so if an employee consistently underperforms, the leader has to make a tough choice.
The Impact of Skill Misalignment on Retention Rates
When job satisfaction and/or performance declines, retention issues occur. And whether the decision to part ways comes from the employee or employer, the costs are the same. According to SHRM, the cost of recruiting a new hire, onboarding, and training can add up to more than 50% of their salary.
The financial cost doesn’t account for the loss of institutional knowledge, the negative impact on team dynamics, or the potential gap on the team as talent pools have diminished and hiring challenges arise.
IT Training as a Solution for Skill Misalignment
When a leader faces this challenge the answer is simple: get them in the right seat. Figuring out what role the employee is best suited for isn’t always straightforward. INE’s Skill Sonar is an aptitude data tool that uses baseline assessments in Cybersecurity and Networking to offer visibility of strengths and training opportunities.
With this tool, a technology leader’s visibility goes from:
“This person is a great culture fit but is underperforming.”
To:
“This person is a great culture fit and underperforming on the Blue Team assessment. However, they exceed expectations on the Red Team assessment.”
Or:
“This person performed really well in certain parts of the Blue Team assessment, but there are clear areas that could be targeted with training to address their performance issues.”
Visibility into the aptitude data gives you, as a technology leader, the information you need to make better decisions on how to staff your team. Productivity and retention will naturally rise by providing team members the opportunity to shine and grow. Find out more about how Skill Sonar can help you better lead your IT/IS team.
