Assessing technical skills without stressing out your team

Assessing technical skills before rolling out learning initiatives allows you to tailor upskilling to your team's unique strengths, weaknesses, and skill gaps.

There are a few different methods you can use to evaluate your team’s skills. In this article, Rachel Smith, Technical Skills Consultant at Pluralsight, explains each method, when it makes sense to use it, and how to reduce assessment-related employee anxiety.

Like the name implies, self-assessments ask employees to evaluate their own skills and expertise. When you don’t have a lot of time, they can give you a quick baseline of employee skills.

But there’s a trade-off.

“Self-assessments are lightweight and relatively easy to roll out, but they’re subjective. Your employees may over- or underestimate their abilities,” says Rachel.

For example, 79% of professionals (and 91% of C-suite executives) admit to overstating their AI knowledge. Self-assessments can’t capture this discrepancy or test employees’ real, hands-on capabilities in a meaningful way.

“We don’t usually recommend self-assessments,” says Rachel. “If you do use them, pair them with additional measures for a more accurate evaluation of your team’s skills.”

Learning checks are low-stakes, formative assessments that help employees evaluate their understanding in real time. This allows them to identify and address gaps or weaknesses before they progress to the next phase of their learning journey. 

“Learning checks are best for when you want to encourage engagement and provide real-time feedback for learners,” says Rachel. “A great use case for learning checks can be embedded questions within certain courses for learners to validate their understanding and provide instant feedback.”

Norm-referenced assessments are wayfinding tools or benchmarks. They typically contain about 25 questions and measure team members’ skills against other people who have taken the same assessment.

This makes them ideal for orienting learners, creating cohorts, and determining the right learning content for their skill level. 

“It’s important to note that these assessments don’t indicate mastery of specific skills, but they do provide a good starting point. They’re also lightweight and adaptive,” says Rachel.

Skill assessments measure proficiency for defined skills and content. Unlike norm-referenced assessments, skill assessments measure true competence (not peer comparison). 

Because of this, skill assessments are more time-consuming than other assessment methods. However, they’re worth the time, especially when you’re developing comprehensive L&D programs. 

“When I was an L&D partner, I used assessments in a blended learning program to showcase employee skill growth from the beginning to completion of the initiative,” says Rachel.

“My organization was able to tell a compelling, data driven story about employee development. And the employees involved in the program had personal data to showcase their ability to learn a new skill.”

When you tell employees that you want to evaluate their skills, it can feel like a pop quiz or “gotcha” moment. They may worry about their job security, expertise, or autonomy. 

To assuage these concerns, show employees how assessing technical skills can benefit their careers and growth opportunities.

Start by explaining why you want to assess tech skills. For example, assessing technical skills will help you: 

• Uncover hidden talent. Some people have specialized skills that don’t get a chance to shine in their everyday work. 

• Identify mentorship opportunities. Understanding everyone’s knowledge can help you facilitate mentorships or employee development opportunities down the line.

• Make upskilling more effective. Identifying skills gaps will help you tailor learning journeys and make sure you don’t waste training time on things everyone already knows.

“Be clear about the organizational objectives surrounding skill evaluation AND highlight the focus on personal development. This will alleviate fear and promote willingness to participate amongst employees,” advises Rachel.

Psychological safety is a core aspect of measuring your team’s skills.

“Inform employees about the data they can see, their manager can see, and their colleagues can see. It is important to emphasize that skill assessments are designed to support skill development, not promote judgement or discipline,” says Rachel.

After you assess your team’s skills using a variety of methods, take a look at their results. Use those findings to:

• Enhance 1:1 conversations about personal development 

• Provide unique project or employee development opportunities surrounding skills and interests

• Share recommended content or external resources

• Co-create an upskilling plan that will allow the learner to showcase growth when reassessing their skills

“Taking action shows employees that skill assessments aren't a time-wasting activity. Rather, they’re an opportunity to develop skills more intentionally and promote unique career opportunities,” says Rachel.

Assessing technical skills can be overwhelming, but it’s key to understanding your team’s gaps and developing engaging learning and development initiatives.

It’s also part of building a continuous learning culture. After three or six months, reassess employee skills to see if you’ve closed the gap or still have more work to do. 

Identify your team’s technical skills gaps—learn more about Pluralsight skill assessments.