What is a skills matrix?

A skills matrix is a conceptual tool for matching people with projects in the way that makes the most sense. It’s a graphical layout of the personnel you have available along with their known interests and competencies. Every person is different, and everybody brings their own strengths and shortcomings to every project. By visually mapping out each of these factors, you can plan a successful project from the first personnel assignments and even improve morale by consistently matching employees with the projects that interest them most.

To develop your first skills matrix, which you may have heard referred to as a competencies matrix or skills map, simply draw up a grid. A common spreadsheet will do for this. In Column A, list the names of all the people you’re considering for a given project. Along Row 1, list the vital skills or tasks the project will likely call for. Where the rows and columns intersect, input a numeric rating for how well each employee is qualified for that specific task along with how much interest they have shown for it. By the end of the process, you should have a fully filled out grid of names and a fairly easy lookup table for which skills they bring to the table. You should also have a clear picture of where the weak points are and which skills you need to recruit for.

How to apply a skills matrix to HR

Example project: setting up a new schedule system

As an example, imagine your company wants to roll out a new scheduling system that offers 4/10 shifts and flex time. This is a major shift from the standard work schedule, and it will take teamwork to make things go smoothly. When it’s time to develop the skills matrices you’re going to use, start by breaking it down into the core tasks to be completed. You may need an automated scheduling app to be reprogrammed, for instance, which requires some skills with a computer and user interfaces. Another task might be to solicit feedback from the workforce about the new schedules, which requires people skills and a concise report to be written. Pay structures may have to be adjusted to prevent automated docking of pay for workers who use flex time or the accidental payout of overtime for workers on 4/10 shifts. It takes payroll and possibly a union rep plus the legal department to make sure that everything complies with labor law and the workers’ contracts. Thus, in this example, some core skills you need are:

• Payroll experience
• App access and experience coding variables
• People skills and the ability to productively interview people
• Report writing
• Union stewardship
• Legal experience in workplace relations and labor law

Now that you have the task broken down into its core competencies, add all the names that you have available to you in the first column. As you work your way across, assign a numeric score for each employee in each category. Again, for an example, John from payroll may have lots of experience in scheduling via the company app, so he gets a 10 (or whatever your highest number is), and he’s been good at doing preemployment interviews, so he gets a seven in that column. He has never written a report, however, so he gets a two or three in that column. Elaine, meanwhile, is part of the legal team and has been working on labor relations for years, so a 10 out of 10 for her in that column is appropriate. She doesn’t have a good relationship with the union, however, so she gets a two there. And so on.

By the end of this example process, you should have a very clear, easy to scan list of the people you can add to the transition team, along with the skills they bring to make it all work. The ideal is to have at least one nine or 10 in every skill and no listed skill with only twos and threes. If you have a competency that lacks a person to do it, that should also be obvious at a glance.

How skills matrices help your HR department

If you manage human relations for your company, you already know how hard it can be to find the right talent for various jobs. It’s common to make subjective decisions based on limited information to meet a deadline. In most cases, you have limited time to scout for the best teams you can build. By adopting skills matrices as an approach to talent allocation, you can cut out a lot of that subjectivity, and the ambiguity that goes with building teams of ordinary people can be replaced by an almost mathematical assessment-assignment process.

Using a skills matrix helps HR managers in another way. By assessing employees on their interest in a task along with their qualifications and experience, you can build up teams of motivated people who can’t wait to do their part for the project. This works even if the person you’re including has no specific experience whatsoever.

Example project: a learning experience

In the project from before where your department is developing a new schedule, you tried to place the most qualified people on the tasks where they have the most experience and knowledge. But if you also plot out the respondents’ expressed or perceived interest in an assignment, you might unlock a great opportunity to cross-train and expand your company’s in-house knowledge base.

Say one of the employees from sales, named Steve, has no specific experience or qualifications to help out with the scheduling project, but he has expressed an interest in learning the payroll system. Without skills matrices that track interest in new skills, you would never have assigned Steve to the schedule reform project team since he lacks experience. But you put him in a subordinate role on the project, and because he gets a nine or a 10 for interest, he’s likely to make himself somewhat useful while helping your project’s payroll specialist despite only being a one or two for experience and training.

Steve will probably learn a lot while he’s helping out with the payroll work. He’s also likely to enjoy the job since it plays to a specific interest of his. And the next time a payroll project has to get done, Steve will be available to you, more experienced than the first time and presumably still eager to help. In this way, your employees’ pool of available talent steadily grows. It also doesn’t hurt morale for workers to be consistently assigned the jobs they would have picked for themselves if they could. This boosts the spirit of the workplace and improves retention and long-term success.

The skills matrix template

A description of skills matrices is good, but it helps to see an example. Using the scheduling project as a guide, you can develop a template to see how it’s done:

Leading the way in developing skills matrices for HR

One of the best things about skills matrices is how scalable they are. Ideally, you should have a primary matrix that’s kept up-to-date. You can draw on this information to quickly populate more project-specific tables with your short list of candidates. The more you use this tool to build and assign teams, the more use you’re likely to have for it. As a way of merging the skills at your disposal with the human element, skills matrices save you time and effort, and they help you better meet your company’s HR needs.

Skills Matrix Templates for PDF & Word

Use these skill matrix templates to help you plan a successful project by matching your employees with the right tasks.

*Indeed provides these examples as a courtesy to users of this site. Please note that we are not your HR or legal adviser, and none of these documents reflect current labor or employment regulations.