Human Resource Management: Conducting a Gap Analysis Report

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of gap analysis within Human Resource Management (HRM). It begins by examining how to conduct a gap analysis for an organization, using Royal Tech Plc as a case study, focusing on identifying skill discrepancies and training needs to improve productivity and achieve business objectives. The report outlines the steps involved in organizational gap analysis, including problem identification, future state establishment, current state analysis, comparison, gap description, and plan creation. It then extends the analysis to the individual level, detailing how to assess an individual's current skills, identify required skills for a specific role, pinpoint skill gaps, and devise improvement strategies. The report also provides a theoretical background, referencing the works of Tannenbaum and Kozlowski to explain the framework of designing and delivering training. The report concludes with the importance of gap analysis in HRM for achieving goals and objectives effectively.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT
CONDUCTING A GAP
ANALYSIS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Conducting a gap analysis for an organisation............................................................................3
Conducting a gap analysis for an individual................................................................................6
Discussion of some theoretical background on the basis of which above two analysis are
performed.....................................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Human Resource Management plays a very vital role in every organisation. HRM
manager is concerned with the functions related to the people and managing them in the best
possible way. HR in the organisation if managed well, then the same may lead to formation of a
competitive advantage for a concern. The benefits like higher employee performance and
satisfaction is what ensured through the appropriate personnel of HRM (Patacsil and Tablatin,
2017). They are concerned with the act of hiring, retaining by motivating, maintaining excellent
workforce, providing HR with the required training and compensation and appraising them from
time to time. The present report is based on such function of HRM, where the discussion related
to how human resource manager can conduct gap analysis in order to frame appropriate human
resource policies by identifying already existing skills and assessing the requirement of learning
new skills to achieve the current goals and objectives of the organisation. So, here in this report
both gap analysis will be conducted on both organisational and individual basis. The organisation
for which the gap analysis will be conducted is Royal Tech Plc.
MAIN BODY
Conducting a gap analysis for an organisation
Royal Tech is a new player in the Information technology sector of US. They are highly
concerned about the recruitment practices of the company. They are always aimed to have
policies in place to cope up with issues of the human resource of the organisation, so that best
talent can be retained with the company and should not be lost to the competitors (Patacsil and
Tablatin, 2017). Here, discussion regarding a related issue that every new and established
organisation always keep on thinking for maintaining good base of human resource in order to
achieve competitive advantage. The issue of this report is the conduction of gap analysis by the
human resource management of the company in order to identify the existing skills and their
contribution and the need to provide training for further skill learning and development, so that
the future goals and objectives of the organisation can be easily achieved with the help
employee’s support in terms of their capabilities and improved performance.
The technique of gap analysis can be used for assessing the training needs in an organisation why
comparing what has been achieved against what is required of planned to be achieved and then
the gap between them is identified. Accordingly, appropriate trainings are provided through

forming strategies to fill the gap identified (Niazi and et.al., 2017). Before conducting any kind
of training programmes organisation must first determined the need to provide particular
training. So, through gap analysis training needs are identified through the identification of
problematic areas in an organisation.
The time when such gap analysis are required to be conducted as follows:
 New employees join the organisation.
 New supervisors join the organisation.
 Assessing managerial competency
 Reassignments and promotions are done in an organisation.
 Productivity and performance problems.
 Deficiency in the system of ensuring safety and appropriate inspection.
 Introduction or modification in the technology and equipment.
 Changing laws, regulations and company’s mission.
 Employee’s request for further career development.
Purpose of conducting gap analysis
 Accomplishment of organisational goals and objectives in an effective and efficient
manner (Cooper and et.al., 2020).
 Identification of discrepancies between skills of employees and the required skills for
performing job in an effective manner.
 Problems and issues that can’t be overcome through the provision of training like
modification required in procedure, policies and practices of the organisation.
With the help of gap analysis the aforesaid issues can be overcome by the human resource
management and other managerial personnel in the organisation.
The analysis conducted for an organisation provide useful insights about areas where there is
a need for training and what are the conditions on the basis of which training will be
conducted. For Royal Tech, the analysis will be conducted on an organisational level, and the
purpose of doing such analysis is the poor productivity in the factory site which is not as per
the business and customer’s needs and expectations (Haegerbaeumer and et.al.,2019). So, in
order to fix the process for the easier attainment of business goals and requirements along

with ensuring satisfactory quality of goods to the customers, there has been laid down gap
analysis. Thus, the discrepancies in the current processes can be identified in order to attain
future goals. But the performance of gap analysis again demand trained, experts and
experienced personnel to carry the process of identifying discrepancies, as a layman or lower
level is not capable of doing these tasks.
The performance of gap analysis is a duty of management, analyst or project manager in
large or medium sized organisation like a Royal Tech (Alshare and Sewailem, 2018). In
many organisation there is a well – designed process or framework under which the gap
analysis can be performed. The following are the steps towards performing gap analysis:
 Identification of the problem creating area and goals to be accomplished: Like if
the management wants to the reason of low productivity then they must need to
identify the reason of not performing to the level targeted and suggesting ways to
remove such causes.
 Establishing future state: Next step is to identify how the like to be or what should
be achieved till the targeted time.
 Analyzing state in the present: Now it is the time to identify what is the state in the
present, so that the policies and practices for reaching towards the future state can be
ensured (Rodríguez-Díaz, Rodríguez-Voltes and Rodríguez-Voltes, 2018). At this
step, various analysis such as were the labour staff are appropriately trained or not,
the causes responsible for not meeting targets, was there any shortage of staff at the
production floor, were the raw materials are timely sourced to the production site and
the layout of the floor of production is appropriately designed or not.
 Comparing the current state and the future state: Now the current productivity
will be compared with the one that is targeted to be achieved in the future. Like if it
has been targeted that by producing 500 units every hours the future target of 10
million units would be achieved. But the current state is that where 300 units are
possibly produced every hour (Haghighi and Bijani, 2019).
 Describing the gap by quantifying the difference: In a quantifiable terms, there is
a 40% fall in the productivity per hour. Now the causes contributing towards this gap
will be outlined. In case Royal Tech the cause of reduced productivity was found out

as 10% due to under staffing, 20% due to insufficient training and 5% due to poor
material availability and 5% due to inappropriate layout of the factory.
 Creation of plans for recommending ways to bridge the gap: At this stage, it has
been decided that what is needed to be modified and what steps will result in fixing
the things. In case of Royal Tech, the major role of bridging the gap is of human
resource management of the company who can by employing more staff and
providing necessary training can reduce the gap to a great extent (Dabestani, Shahin
and Saljoughian, 2017). The analysis team can by holding responsible to those
associated with the material handling and layout designing can tackle the related
issue causing gap.
In this way organisational gap analysis can be conducted in the best manner.
Conducting a gap analysis for an individual
As the gap analysis conducted for an organisation in the above section, the same thing can be
done for an individual too. The need of individual gap analysis arises when one newly joins the
organisation or if anyone who is promoted to higher position or shifted another job role.
Normally, it is performed when things are not going well with the plans and there is a fear of not
meeting future targets. Here is how such individual’s skill gap analysis can be performed:
 Identifying the current state of an individual: First of all the skills currently present in
an individual has been analyzed by the team leader or HR manager. Here the individual
have skills like accounting skills, analytical skills, financial skills, communication skills,
interpersonal skills and various other managerial skills (Ayodele, Oladokun and Kajimo-
Shakantu, 2020).
 Identifying what should be the required skills to perform the job role: As the
individual here has been recruited for the finance department, so all the skills necessary
to perform financial role must be present in an individual and these skills are identified.
So, it has been identified here that a financial personnel must have skills like qualification
in preparing accounting related document, financial reporting knowledge, ability to
analyze performance and financial factors, problem solving abilities, communication
skills and interpersonal skills, experience of managerial tasks and skills and knowledge
information technology for handling software (Bohlouli and et.al., 2017).

 Gap identification: In this step, the required skills for performing financial role and the
absence of the same will be identified. Here, the individual who is selected for financial
job role is having almost all the skills needed, except skills like information technology
and software handling and problem solving abilities are found to be not present in an
individual. And this is the gap between the required and possessed skills.
 Devising strategies for improvement and bridging the gap: Now either the team leader
or human resource manager will devise strategies for bridging the gap between the
required and possessed skills. So, the HR manager will provide with necessary training
by recognizing the gap for IT skills and problem solving skills.
In this way, gap analysis is helpful in obtaining better productivity and performance from an
individuals in an organisation, so that the goals can be accomplished in an effective and
efficient manner.
Discussion of some theoretical background on the basis of which above two analysis are
performed
Tannenbaum and his colleagues has provided with the framework of designing and delivering
training where different conditions of training both before and during are outlined which can
have an influence over learning from training (Haegerbaeumer and et.al.,2019). Also, the factors
that may contribute towards the transfer of skills post training are outlined in their theory
developed after conducting gap analysis for determining training needs.
Kozlowski and his colleagues has provided with discussion related to the importance of featuring
the processes and factors in which training programmes are implemented and transferred in an
organisation (Niazi and et.al., 2017). They have considered factors pertaining to organisational
system and issues related to the design of the training as an element influencing the effectiveness
of training transfer process.
So, these theories are helpful in conducting gap analysis and taking correctives actions to bridge
the gap between the future state and current state.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it has been concluded that how HRM of any organisation has a
great role towards performing the gap analysis and taking corrective actions by recruiting

talented individuals and providing training according to the requirements of the organisation and
the respective job roles in it. It is very important for accomplishment of goals and objectives and
also beneficial in getting closer to the desired future state.

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