👉 Download your free Skills Assessment Template (.pdf)

• Free, fillable .pdf template. 
• This simple tool helps measure competency and identify skills gaps. 
• Note! This Template is a great starting point - but it's not a replacement for a digital "know-how" platform for Skills Development.

Skills assessments in manufacturing.

Skills assessments are an essential part of any successful skills development strategy in manufacturing. 

Why?

Success in your manufacturing operations hinges on knowing exactly how competent and qualified any member of the frontline workforce is at performing the task at hand.

From basic training and onboarding procedures, to populating detailed digital skills matrices - you’ll only benefit from understanding the capabilities of the people on your factory floor.

Skills assessments take many different forms - from the most basic paper and PDF tools to digital systems that fully integrate with a skills management platform. 

💡 Want to take a deeper dive into all things skills assessment? Check out our article on the subject and our Playbook on creating digital skills matrices.

The PDF template that we’ve included with this article is a great starting point for standardizing and improving your skills development workflow. It’s intended as a simple way  for you to get the feel of recording task proficiency while observing your frontline teams in action. 

Want to learn more about digitizing and integrating your skills assessments? We cover that in detail here.

1. Set clear goals.

Skills assessments are only effective if they work towards a clear purpose - defining the level of employee competency as it relates to specific tasks. You’ll need to consider the information and end results that you wish to gather before you proceed. 

Start by outlining the specific goals of your skills assessment program. Are you aiming to:

• Identify training needs and skills gaps?
• Evaluate the effectiveness of your onboarding and training initiatives?
• Evaluate the success of your digital job aids (like work instructions and SOPs)?
• Create more targeted employee development plans?

The other essential element to any successful skills development or skills management project?

Standardize, standardize, standardize.

The information from skills assessments is only truly effective if you can compare with results across your organization. In addition to standardizing the format of the assessments, we recommend clearly defining the proficiency levels within:

You can use these levels to compare employee performance across your teams, lines, and sites and provide the basis for tracking short-term and long-term employee development.

2. Link skills assessments to the task at hand.

Skills assessments MUST be tied to the work that a given employee performs on a daily basis. The more specific, the better. 

One of the most powerful use cases for skills assessments is their ability to populate a skills matrix to better manage shift planning and closing skills gaps on the factory floor. As such, competencies must be broken down into the discreet tasks and skills that are performed during a shift.

Check out the skills matrix below to see how skills are organized for a typical shift in a bottling plant.

Once the assessments are completed and the matrix is populated, supervisors have a complete view of capabilities of their entire team. Of course, skills assessments can be used to gather a wide range of data, not just to measure task proficiency.

This includes:

• Technical skills (e.g., machine operation, welding, programming)
• Problem-solving abilities
• Quality control and inspection expertise
• Safety knowledge
• Teamwork and communication skills

3. Choose the Right Assessment Methods.

In the world of skills assessments, there are a number of strategies that are effective.

Practical tests: Simulate real-world scenarios to evaluate hands-on skills.

Observation: Evaluate on-the-job performance and adherence to procedures.

Self-assessments: Encourage employees to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses.

360-degree feedback: Gather input from supervisors, peers, and subordinates for a holistic perspective.

The template that we’ve included with this article lends itself to a practical or observational method, in which an employee can perform a specific task in front of a supervisor who will then record their relative competency.

However, we find that self assessments are an incredibly effective tool that help an employee take a more active role in their own skills development journey. In these, the employee is asked to assess their own competency for a given task. 

Often, self assessments are required when an employee would like to improve their own skills portfolio in order to advance their career or position. Not only do self assessments help you understand your team’s  estimation of their own abilities - but they can be a great way to increase buy-in and engagement by providing more opportunities for advancement and agency within a role.

4. Offer regular feedback and long-term development opportunities.

Skills development is a two-way street.

Assessments are most effective when they're part of an ongoing, reciprocal process. They’re more than a tool for evaluating competency and populating skills matrices - they can go a long way towards developing a culture of continuous improvement and providing meaningful touchpoints around performance.

The best skills assessment tools will give supervisors the ability to leave detailed, constructive feedback about why an employee has received a specific score. This paints a more complete picture of the skills development journey, while opening up the opportunity for you to deliver targeted training resources.

Competency development is a years-long process that allows you to support a well-rounded, engaged workforce that:

• Makes fewer human errors (contributing to better products and less downtime)
• Is more flexible and adaptable in the long and short-term
• Is more engaged and feels more connected to their role and their future with your company.

Investing in your employees does more than improve your bottom line. It’s a way to communicate to people that they matter, while making their jobs easier and reducing the likelihood that they’ll leave for a similar position elsewhere.

5. Go go go digital!

Paper and PDF skills assessments are a great starting point. They enable you to, at the very least, accurately assess the relevant skills and competencies that make up your manufacturing workflows.

But the truth is: they leave a lot to be desired when it comes to incorporating this data into your existing skills development initiatives. The data from these tools will need to be manually uploaded into a skills management platform. In addition to the time spent on data entry, this opens up opportunities for inaccurate and out of date information about who can do which tasks on the shop floor.

Skills matrices. 

Digital skills matrices are the ultimate tool for coordinating skills management in real time. Understand the capabilities and skills gaps of your entire frontline workforce at a glance in order to assign work, flex shifts, and deliver additional training opportunities.

Integrating skills assessment data directly into a digital skills matrix means that your overview will always be up to date and your decisions will be 

Digital job aids and training resources.

Once a skills gap has been identified in a digital skills management system, the relevant training materials can be automatically delivered based on the results of the skills assessment. These personalized resources can be utilized on-the-job for greater retention, and have already been standardized - so you know that the training is as relevant and up-to-date as possible.

Employee skills portfolios.

Considering an employee for a promotion? Want to know how they can be flexed to another shift? Want to investigate a series of ‘mysterious’ line stoppages? Digital skills assessments are also used to automatically populate individual skills portfolios for employees, where you can see their strengths and weaknesses at a glance.

Data analytics.

Modern manufacturing is built on good data - and skills development is no exception. By digitizing your entire skills management process, you can overview, evaluate, and improve every aspect  of skills development on the shop floor. And save a lot of time doing it.

Want more skills content?

👉 Here's how to train based on competency, not job titles.

👉 Here's a great free template to help coordinate employee development.

👉 Here's a breakdown of reskilling vs. upskilling (and the importance of each) at the frontline.