By Blessing Kemlo
Before investing in another recruitment campaign or training programme, ask a more uncomfortable question: do we know precisely which capability is missing?
When an organisation struggles to meet its objectives, the response often sounds familiar: “We need better people.” “We need to hire someone with more experience.” “Our employees need training.”
These statements may be correct. But they are conclusions, not diagnoses.
A business can spend substantial time and money recruiting or training people without resolving the underlying problem, particularly when the capability gap has not been clearly identified.
A vacancy is not a skills diagnosis
Suppose a team repeatedly misses delivery deadlines. Management decides to recruit a more experienced operations manager. The new employee arrives with an impressive CV, but the delays continue.
Further investigation reveals that the team receives incomplete information from other departments, planning systems are outdated and managers lack authority to resolve conflicting priorities.
The organisation recruited for an apparent people problem when the main obstacles were process and decision-making problems.
This does not mean the new employee lacks value. It means the organisation may have expected one person to compensate for several structural weaknesses.
The same pattern appears in training. A team receives communication training because projects regularly fail during handovers. Yet the real problem is that different departments use incompatible systems and have no agreed process for transferring responsibility. Training may improve communication, but it cannot independently resolve a poorly designed workflow.
Five different problems can look like one skills gap
1. A genuine capability gap. The work requires a skill that nobody in the team currently possesses at the necessary level. Recruitment, training or specialist support may be appropriate.
2. A capacity gap. The team has the required skills but not enough available time or people to complete the workload. Adding training will not necessarily solve this problem.
3. An access gap. The capability exists somewhere in the organisation, but employees cannot access it because of departmental boundaries, unclear responsibilities or limited collaboration.
4. A process gap. Employees know what to do, but systems, approvals, handovers or procedures make it difficult to do it consistently.
5. An authority gap. Employees are held responsible for results without having the decision-making power needed to achieve them.
These problems can occur together. The purpose of distinguishing them is to prevent an organisation from selecting an intervention that addresses only the most visible symptom.
Start with the work, not the job title
A useful capability assessment begins with the business outcome. What must improve? Faster delivery? Fewer defects? Better customer retention? More reliable forecasting? Stronger compliance? A safer operation?
Next, identify the work that produces that outcome and the capabilities required to perform it.
For example, improving forecasting may require data analysis, commercial judgement, reliable information and collaboration between sales and operations. Recruiting a data analyst may help, but only if the relevant data exists and decision-makers use the resulting insight.
The assessment should then determine which capabilities are available, which are missing, where they are needed and whether employees can apply them under current working conditions.
A practical capability audit
- Define the business outcome that is not being achieved.
- Identify the tasks and decisions most closely connected to that outcome.
- Specify the capabilities required to perform those tasks.
- Gather evidence of current capability through work samples, interviews, observed performance or relevant results.
- Identify whether the barrier is skill, capacity, process, access or authority.
- Compare possible responses before committing resources.
Possible responses may include building skills internally, buying capability through recruitment, borrowing specialist expertise, redesigning the work, redistributing responsibilities or investigating further. Each option has different costs, risks and time horizons. The right choice depends on the actual problem.
Why this matters for talent strategy
Recruitment and learning investments are not interchangeable, and neither is automatically the best answer.
Recruiting may be appropriate when capability is urgently needed and cannot be developed quickly enough internally. Training may be suitable when the capability gap is clear and employees have the opportunity to practise new skills. Redesign may be essential when the current system prevents people from applying what they already know.
A careful diagnosis can also reveal underused talent: employees who possess relevant skills but are assigned work that does not allow those skills to contribute to business outcomes.
The aim is not simply to reduce recruitment or training expenditure. It is to direct investment towards the intervention most likely to solve the problem.
Better questions create better decisions
When a leader says, “We need better people,” the next question should not be, “How quickly can we recruit?” It should be, “What must the organisation be able to do that it cannot reliably do today?”
That question moves the discussion from assumptions about people to evidence about work, capability and organisational design.
Govel Fraser’s approach to Talent Intelligence™ is grounded in this distinction: understand the business problem before deciding what talent intervention it requires.
Sometimes the solution is a new hire. Sometimes it is development, redesign, redistribution or a combination of interventions. The value lies in knowing the difference before committing the organisation’s time and money.
Govel Fraser | Unlocking Dignity Through Opportunity.