What is a Skills Matrix? A skills matrix is a table or grid that helps to visually depict the competency of an individual against specified skills and knowledge areas. The skills matrix template is essential for a manager to know who of his team members has the capability and skills to do a particular job. It is also a managerial tool that presents the skills, interests, and knowledge of the team members within an organization/project. The main goal of the matrix is to identify the skill sets a specific role requires, match them with those of a team member and identify any gaps between the two. Download This Template Now! Skills Matrix Template Excel Skills Matrix Template List down the employee names and their current job roles in the team in the first two columns. Employees can be grouped based on their roles (E.g., Developer, QA, Project Lead, PMO, etc.). List down the skills and knowledge areas required by the team in the following columns at the top. This includes an exhaustive list of all employment skills like technical and non-technical skills and can be grouped into broad categories (e.g., Technical, Generic, Business, or Project Management). Evaluate the employee's row by row against each skill and knowledge area listed and assign them a rating from “0” to “4”, with “0” indicating ‘Not Applicable,’ “1” indicating ‘Beginner,’ “2” indicating ‘Intermediate,’ “3” indicating ‘Advanced,’ “4” indicating ‘Expert.’ Employee-Skills-Rating This helps to assess the training needs of the employees and to increase employee productivity. Once the evaluation process is complete and the employee’s skills have been captured and incorporated in the excel template, it is advisable to review the final draft with the team members. This enables them to verify that the information captured is correct and comment on any discrepancies. Employee Competency Matrix Template The competency matrix is similar to the skills matrix in column headers and team members’ names. Still, they differ in the grading legend: Instead of the level of knowledge, they measure the level of training an employee needs for each skill. In the Excel template example, the following grades are used: “Requires Basic Training,” “Requires Advanced Training,” “No Training Necessary,” or “Trainer” (expert level). Employee Competency Matrix Template IT Skills Matrix Template The IT skills matrix template (in a PowerPoint format) can be used for assessing the skills of team members of an IT project. The skill sets relevant for this type of project include technical and managerial (all in one table). Each employee is graded on these skills, while the legend consists of numbers: 1 through 5 (highest level). IT Skills Matrix Template Simple Skills Matrix - Free Template The Excel template presents a skills matrix example that can be used to gauge the skills of team members in a server engineering project. The grades used are “Expert,” “Intermediate,” “Novice,” or “Not familiar,” and they are represented by colors only. An “X” in one of the Excel cells means that the specific skill is crucial for the specific role. Download This Template Now! Skill Matrix Template An effective way to validate the skills and knowledge of his team members, a manager can use an employee skills matrix. This employee skills matrix demonstrates the capabilities of the team members in specific skills and knowledge areas. It can also be used to identify the individuals' interests to work on any future assignments using these employment skills. This tool can be easily reviewed and needs to be updated regularly. During the evaluation process, this tool can help identify any gaps in terms of the skills and knowledge required by the team members to complete a job and thus can be used to manage and monitor an individual's training needs. It can also be used as an input during a performance review. The key step of a skill matrix is to identify the job description, roles, and responsibilities of the employees and the skills and capabilities required by an individual to fit a particular role. How To Create a Skills Matrix? Step 1: Matching team members to the roles: Discuss with each potential team member their skills, knowledge level, and interests in the project's tasks. This exercise aims to match the team members with the task they are interested in completing and are qualified to do so. Step 2: Gauge the level of interest: Try and assess each team member's level of interest with roles that are in their skill set and that they have been proposed for. This can be achieved by presenting each team member with the roles and tasks they have been proposed and getting their feedback. Another method is to ask them what they believe to be their first steps. If they present them in Matching team members to the roles: Discuss with each potential team member their skills, knowledge level, and interests about the tasks which have been identified for the project. This exercise aims to match the team members with the task they are interested in completing and are qualified to do so. Step 3: Consulting with their supervisors: This step should be done in parallel with the previous one. It involves speaking to the team members’ manager (either past or present) and hear which tasks they feel are most suited for their employees. The goal is to recognize which current tasks have already been performed and get specific feedback regarding them. Step 4: Review the matrix: Meet with each team member individually and review the matrix with them. The goal is to verify the matching of their skills with their proposed roles and tasks. It is important to understand why they aren’t interested in a specific task; this can help match it to another team member. The Concise way usually means that they thought this through and are interested in seeing them come to fruition. If they don’t know what to do, it usually means that this task didn’t spark their interest. How to Create a Skills Matrix Benefits of a Skills Matrix Provides complete awareness among team members on their role and what skills and competencies are required to succeed in that role. It's a kind of employee motivation for more employee productivity. Creates awareness on the areas of growth and helps identify focus areas for training. Enables managers to understand the skill strengths and weaknesses of their reporting employees. Facilitates search for desired skills and talents across the organization (e.g., to help fill a role, resource for a short term assignment) To the organization: Enables the PM’s to match employees with tasks. To the individual: Visibility of which skill each task/role requires, and can easily aim to receive training for future projects. To the customer: Shorter staffing lead times and higher levels of confidence in the team members' ability. Thus, the employee skills matrix is a simple but highly effective skill matrix tool that should be monitored regularly to identify any skill gaps and assess individuals' training needs within the team. 5 Simple Steps to use the Skills Matrix Template Writing the team members' names in column A. Match their proposed roles in column B. From column, C enters the skills that are relevant to the project. This can be split into a group of skills, for example: Technical, managerial, generic, etc. Decide on a grading legend: Either numbers or words, for example, 0 through 5 where 1 is low competency, 5 is very high competency, and 0 is “Not relevant.” Another grading example is “Expert,” “Intermediate,” “Novice,” or “Not familiar.” Each team member receives a grade for each column. It is recommended that each grade will be given a specific color (using the “Conditional Formatting” option).