A study from McKinsey & Company found that a whopping 87% of organisations are experiencing skills gaps within their workforce or expect to be in the near future.

With skills requirements doubling by 2027 and the global shortage potentially costing $8.5 trillion by 2030, organisations need smarter ways to identify and close these gaps. Traditional annual reviews can't keep pace with rapid change, that's where feedback analytics comes in.

This guide shows you how to use continuous employee feedback to spot skill deficiencies before they hurt performance, choose the right tools, and turn insights into targeted development plans that actually work.

What is a skills gap in the workplace?

So what do we mean when we talk about skills gaps? Skills gaps in a workplace refer to the mismatch between the skills and knowledge required for a particular job or industry and the skills possessed by the existing workforce.

These gaps can occur for several different reasons, such as technological advancements, changing market demands, and evolving job roles. When skills gaps exist, employers can find it challenging to fill positions with qualified individuals who possess the necessary competencies.

Unfortunately, skills gaps can hinder productivity, innovation, and overall organisational growth. Addressing skills gaps often involves implementing training programmes, upskilling or reskilling employees, and fostering a culture of continuous learning.

By bridging the gaps, organisations can enhance their workforce's capabilities, adapt to changing landscapes, and remain competitive in a dynamic and ever-evolving professional environment.

An example of a skills gap in industry

Let's consider a scenario where a company decides to adopt a new customer relationship management (CRM) system to streamline their sales operations and increase efficiency. However, upon implementation, they realise that a significant number of sales representatives lack the necessary skills to effectively use the new CRM.

In this case, the skills gap lies in the employees' proficiency with the new system. They may not be familiar with its features, reporting capabilities, or how to navigate the interface efficiently. As a result, they struggle to track customer interactions, generate accurate sales forecasts, and fully utilise the CRM's automation capabilities.

This struggle and the resulting drain on productivity could have been avoided with feedback analytics performed before implementing the new system. Regular employee pulse surveys and skills assessments would have revealed the team's current technical proficiency and highlighted areas needing pre-implementation training.

What is feedback analytics?

We've all heard of data analysis, but what is feedback analytics, specifically? Feedback analytics is the systematic collection and analysis of employee feedback data—including surveys, performance reviews, 360-degree assessments, and qualitative comments—to gain insights and make informed decisions about workforce capabilities.

Key data sources include pulse surveys, skills self-assessments, peer feedback, manager evaluations, training completion rates, and performance metrics. The analysis of this feedback helps identify specific skill deficiencies, optimise talent development, improve employee engagement, and drive organisational success.

As you explore feedback analytics, imagine having all your employee surveys, skills assessments, and real-time insights in a single dashboard—ThriveSparrow makes that possible, turning data into actionable results you can use now.

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The benefits of using feedback analytics to identify skill gaps

Here are a few key benefits your organisation can enjoy when you use feedback analytics to identify skills gaps in your workforce.

1. Enhanced decision-making:

Feedback analytics provides objective and data-driven insights, enabling informed decision-making when it comes to addressing skills gaps. Data can also be used as quantitative evidence to support new training initiatives proposed to stakeholders and internal team members.

2. Proactive skill planning:

By identifying skills gaps through continuous feedback, organisations can proactively plan for future skill requirements. This allows them to develop targeted training programmes, hire talent with the necessary skills, or initiate upskilling programmes to bridge the gaps before they impact performance.

3. Cost optimisation:

‍Feedback analytics helps organisations allocate training budgets efficiently by targeting specific areas of skill gaps. It minimises unnecessary spending on training programmes that may not directly address critical skill deficiencies.

4. Improved productivity and performance:

By addressing skills gaps, employees become more competent, productive, and capable of meeting job requirements. Research shows that companies with robust training programmes see 218% higher income per employee and 24% higher profit margins.

5. Talent retention and engagement:

Identifying and addressing skills gaps demonstrates an organisation's commitment to employee growth and development. This can boost employee morale, engagement, and satisfaction. Studies show that 94% of workers are more likely to stay when their company invests in training.

6. Competitive advantage:

Closing skills gaps enables organisations to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to changing market demands. It helps them build a skilled workforce capable of meeting current and future challenges, giving them a competitive edge in their industry.

7. Real-time insights:

Unlike annual reviews, continuous feedback analytics provides ongoing visibility into skill development, allowing organisations to respond quickly when gaps emerge rather than waiting months to identify issues.

Key metrics to track for skill gap analysis

Several key metrics can give you valuable insights when measuring skills gaps through feedback analytics. Some of these metrics include:

• ‍Skills Proficiency Scores: Track employee self-ratings and manager assessments of specific competencies on a standardized scale (e.g., 1-5). Compare these scores against required proficiency levels for each role to identify gaps.
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• Feedback Participation Rate: Measure the percentage of employees actively participating in pulse surveys, skills assessments, and 360-degree feedback. Low participation rates may indicate engagement issues or concerns about psychological safety.
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• Training Completion Rates: Monitoring the rate at which employees participate in and successfully complete training programmes can provide insights into their willingness and ability to acquire necessary skills. Low completion rates may signal a skills gap or ineffective training design.
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• Performance Improvement Trends: Track how skill proficiency scores change over time, particularly after training interventions. This demonstrates whether learning programmes are effectively closing identified gaps.
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• Employee Feedback Themes: Analyze qualitative comments from open-ended survey responses to identify recurring skill challenges. Text analytics tools can categorize themes like "struggling with new software" or "need more leadership training."
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• Time-to-Proficiency: Measure how long it takes new hires or employees in new roles to reach required proficiency levels. Longer times may indicate inadequate onboarding or training resources.
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• Peer Review Scores: 360-degree feedback provides insights into how colleagues perceive an employee's skills in areas like collaboration, communication, and problem-solving—competencies that managers may not directly observe.

Tracking these skill metrics shouldn’t be a maze of spreadsheets—ThriveSparrow unifies surveys, analytics, and reporting so you can spot trends and close gaps before they cost you.

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How to identify skill gaps through feedback analytics

Feedback analytics can be a real game-changer for organisations when it comes to defining the skills and competencies they need. Below we've broken down a few ways in which feedback analytics can help with this process.

1. Pulse surveys:

By deploying brief, frequent surveys that ask targeted questions about specific skills (e.g., "How confident do you feel using data visualization tools?"), feedback analytics gives organisations a clear picture of where employees struggle. Regular pulses track trends over time and catch emerging gaps early.

2. Skills gap analysis:

This is where feedback analytics helps compare the skills employees currently have with the skills required for specific roles. By analyzing self-assessments, peer feedback, and manager evaluations together, organisations can pinpoint where additional training or recruitment efforts are needed.

3. 360-degree feedback analysis:

Feedback analytics can uncover the skills and competencies that contribute to high performance by aggregating input from managers, peers, and direct reports. By studying what makes a high-performing employee, initiatives can be introduced to upskill other members of the team in these specific areas or skills.

4. Industry benchmarking:

Feedback analytics allows organisations to compare their workforce's skill levels with industry benchmarks and best practices. This helps them stay up to date with the latest trends and adjust their skill requirements to remain competitive.

5. Qualitative feedback mining:

Text analytics tools can process open-ended survey comments to identify recurring themes, concerns, and suggestions related to skills and competencies. This valuable input helps shape the skill definition process and ensures that employees' perspectives are taken into account.

Performance correlation analysis: By linking feedback scores with performance metrics (sales figures, project completion rates, customer satisfaction), organisations can identify which skills have the greatest impact on business outcomes and prioritize development accordingly.

Key tools for feedback analytics and skills gap identification

Several platforms can help organisations leverage feedback analytics effectively:

1. ThriveSparrow

ThriveSparrow feedback gives HR one platform for continuous employee feedback, skill gap insights, and automated training—all in real time.

Why ThriveSparrow is a top choice for HR managers to identify skill gaps:

• Combines surveys, 360 reviews, and skills tracking in one place
• Turns feedback into simple, visual skill gap insights
• Shows real-time updates on skills and progress
• Integrates with training tools to close gaps fast
• Easy for HR and managers to use
• Tracks impact of training automatically
• Keeps teams engaged and growing continuously

ThriveSparrow helps HR teams quickly identify skill gaps and manage ongoing feedback in one platform. To see what it can do for your organization, start your 14-day free trial—no credit card needed.

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2. Workday Skills Cloud

An enterprise HRIS solution that uses machine learning to infer skills from job titles and learning records. Best for large organizations needing unified employee data and AI-driven recommendations.

3. Culture Amp

Focuses on employee engagement surveys with robust analytics for identifying patterns in feedback. Strong benchmarking capabilities compare your workforce against industry peers.

4.Pluralsight Skills

Specialized in technical skills assessments with role-IQ scoring and hands-on labs. Ideal for technology teams requiring deep technical measurement.

When selecting tools, prioritize platforms that integrate feedback collection, analysis, and action planning in one system. This ensures insights aren't lost in spreadsheets and enables quick response to identified gaps.

Overcoming challenges in using feedback analytics for skills gap analysis

Whilst using feedback analytics is an effective way to identify skills gaps in your organisation, there are also considerations to take into account. Handling of the data should follow the below guidelines to produce the most worthwhile results:

1. Ensuring psychological safety:

Employees must feel safe admitting they lack certain skills. Guarantee anonymity where appropriate and foster a non-punitive culture. Communicate clearly that feedback is used for development, not discipline.

2. Maintaining data currency:

Feedback data is dynamic as employees develop new skills, change roles, or leave the organisation. Regularly updating and analyzing feedback ensures the accuracy and relevance of skill gap analysis. Continuous pulse surveys solve this better than annual reviews.

3. Aligning analysis with business goals:

Linking insights from feedback analytics to business goals and objectives can be difficult. HR professionals must ensure that skill gap analysis outcomes are translated into actionable strategies and integrated into talent management and training programmes effectively.

4. Balancing quantitative and qualitative data:

Numbers alone don't tell the whole story. Combine survey scores with open-ended comments, interviews, and focus groups to understand not just where gaps exist, but why they persist and what barriers prevent skill development.

5. Ethical considerations:

Using feedback analytics raises ethical considerations related to employee privacy, bias, and fairness. HR professionals must handle data responsibly, ensuring that analyses and decisions are made in an ethical and unbiased manner. Comply with data protection regulations like GDPR and anonymize sensitive responses.

6. Encouraging participation:

‍Low response rates limit the value of feedback analytics. Embed surveys into existing workflows (like project completions), communicate how feedback drives positive change, and keep surveys brief to respect employees' time.

How Adobe closed their skills gap with the help of feedback analytics

Adobe recognised the need to address skills gaps within their organisation and move beyond the limitations of annual performance reviews. To accomplish this, they launched their "Check-In" programme, which replaced traditional annual reviews with continuous feedback conversations.

This continuous feedback system enabled managers and employees to have regular discussions about skills, development needs, and career aspirations. Adobe collected and analysed feedback data to identify skills gaps and understand the areas where employees needed additional knowledge or expertise.

The results were remarkable: Adobe saw a 30% increase in employee engagement and significantly reduced voluntary turnover. Employees felt more empowered to take charge of their development, and managers had real-time visibility into team capabilities rather than waiting for annual review cycles.

Similarly, Netflix's 360-degree feedback culture—which gathers input from peers, managers, and direct reports—produces a 75% increase in retention. By making feedback continuous and multi-directional, these companies transformed how they identify and close skills gaps.

Looking to leverage feedback analytics to bridge the skills gaps in your organisation?

At ThriveSparrow, we offer a comprehensive employee feedback and engagement platform designed to help organisations identify and close skills gaps through continuous, data-driven insights.

The platform provides HR teams with the ability to deploy pulse surveys, 360-degree assessments, and skills tracking—all integrated into customizable analytics dashboards. You can gain a better understanding of where skill gaps exist, track improvement over time, and measure the ROI of training interventions.

If you're interested in transforming how your organisation identifies and addresses skills gaps, book a free demo of ThriveSparrow today. Discover how continuous feedback analytics can help you build a more capable, engaged, and future-ready workforce.

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