Skills Review and Appraisals

How often do you conduct a skills review of your company? Regularly, sometimes, never? Assessing what skills exist within your team and what skills are needed to do things better and keep improving is the secret to successful business development. And it needn’t be onerous. Follow our step-by-step skills review process, with all the documents you need to undertake staff appraisals and evaluate performance, and discover the difference strategic skills development can have on your business. It could help you to reveal untapped talents, your business leaders of the future and ways to boost efficiency that you never knew existed.

Our appraisal form can be found at the bottom of this page, ready for download. 

Why complete a skills review?

  • Uncover your skills needs for now and in the future to ensure you remain competitive
  • Improve staff morale, motivation, loyalty and retention
  • Employees become more efficient, saving your business money
  • It’s cost effective as it is cheaper to train existing employees than recruit new ones
  • Investing in your staff gives your business a mark of professional credibility to enhance your image

Six Steps of a skills review

STEP ONE - Identify Company Objectives

Kick things off by thinking about your business activities over the coming year - what skills are required and do any gaps exist?

Who's involved: Senior Management

Tool needed: Organisational Learning Plan

STEP TWO - Time for self-reflection

This stage focuses on employees and helps them to assess their achievements and aspirations.

Who's involved: Employees

Tool needed: Self-appraisal form

STEP THREE - Staff Appraisal

Get talking. Bring employees and line managers together to look back over the past 12 months and forward to the next.

Who's involved: Employees and Line Manager

Tool needed: Staff appraisal form

STEP FOUR - Source Training

Now match the skills needs of the company with employees' personal development aspirations and summarise training arrangements in the Company Training Plan.

Who's involved: Senior Management and Employees

Tool needed: Company Training Plan

STEP FIVE - Undertake Training

The fun part. It’s time to put all the planning into action and get stuck into training. Go do it!

Who’s involved: Anyone and everyone undertaking training

Tools needed: Enthusiasm and an open mind

STEP FIVE - Evaluation

Training done, how did it go? Did it meet expectations and objectives and have skills gaps been filled as a result?

Who’s involved: Senior Management and Employees

Tool needed: page two of the Company Training Plan

Individual Learning Plan

This document is a place for employees to record any training that they have undertaken; from courses and conferences to mentoring and targeted experience.