As a manager, have you ever looked at your team and wondered how you can help specific employees reach their full potential? Skill will matrices provide invaluable insight to answer this critical question.
This comprehensive guide will teach you exactly how skill will matrices work and equip you to start leveraging their benefits right away. You’ll learn:
- What skill will matrices are and why they matter
- How to construct a matrix for your team
- Strategies to manage and develop employees based on matrix findings
- Real-world applications and use cases
- Templates to simplify implementation
Whether overseeing software engineers or sales reps, understanding both capabilities and engagement is key to leadership. This guide unlocks that understanding via a simple yet powerful framework. Let’s get started!
An Introduction to Skill Will Matrix Concepts
A skill will matrix is a type of analysis charting employee skill levels against motivation to apply them, revealing key insights to inform management approaches.
Specifically, the matrix plots staff on a 2×2 grid of:
- Skill (competencies, experience, proven abilities)
- Will (desire, drive, initiative to leverage skills)
An employee’s position across four resulting quadrants shows their developmental needs:
Image source: Creately
For example, a skilled yet disengaged employee may occupy the high skill/low will quadrant, signaling a need for motivation and engagement strategies from leadership.
In this way, clear archetypes emerge showing appropriate strategies to elevate performance through training interventions or tailored management techniques per individual.
Benefits you may realize from skill will analysis include:
- Optimize team effectiveness
- Surface talent gaps and surpluses
- Sharpen recruiting and hiring practices
- Match management style to employees
- Promote professional growth
Now that you understand the basics of mapping skills and will, let’s examine what comprises each factor.
Defining Skill and Will in Matrix Analysis
Two key dimensions determine an employee’s matrix placement:
Skill
Skill represents proven talents, competencies, qualifications and abilities within a certain domain. Skills can encompass technical expertise, soft skills like communications or cognitive abilities like problem-solving.
You can assess skill through indicators like:
- Years of experience
- Specific credentials, training or education
- Past performance outcomes
- Natural talents or gifts (emotional intelligence, creativity, etc.)
High skill employees exhibit mastery and bring valuable proficiency to accomplish goals. Employees with sizeable skill gaps require development interventions.
Will
Will refers to inner drive, motivation, hunger and desire to apply one’s skills. High will signifies taking initiative, displaying persistence and willingness to work hard. Low will describes complacency, distraction or reluctance.
Several influences shape an employee’s will:
- Alignment of work to personal interests and values
- Passion and engagement with the work itself
- Relationships and cultural connectivity
- Recognition, growth opportunities and vision
- Compensation, perks and leadership rapport
You can evaluate will through behaviors like proactive goal-setting, willingness to support team, positive affect and more.
With definitions of skill and will explained, we can now explore how to leverage them as a manager.
Harnessing the Power of Skill Will Matrix Insights
Placing employees onto a skill/will matrix grants you a multifaceted picture of talent capability and motivation. With this insight, tailored strategies per quadrant emerge:
Image source: Creately
Low Skill/Low Will (Quadrant 1)
Employees here may feel overwhelmed or unclear how to direct energy. Reignite motivation by connecting work to individual strengths while restoring confidence in gradual steps. Guide frequent feedback focused on growth. Define clear expectations matched to current skill levels while encouraging continued skills development over time.
Low Skill/High Will (Quadrant 2)
Emerging talent ready to learn deserve patient guidance to unlock potential without overly rapid expectations setting them up to fail or lose morale. Nurture growth by delegating stretch assignments paired with mentorship and check-ins. Seek opportunities to acknowledge effort and support professional development. Their motivation is an asset; direct it toward productive skill gains.
High Skill/Low Will (Quadrant 3)
Reignite veterans’ passion by reconnecting work to company mission and demonstrating its strategic impact. Solicit ideas for getting out of ruts. Inject novelty by tweaking responsibilities or elevating scope. Convey you value specialized contributions. Discretionary effort may renew by conveying reciprocity through leadership opportunities, passion projects or highlighted growth trajectories.
High Skill/High Will (Quadrant 4)
Star players deserve autonomy and inclusion shaping initiatives they’ll carry out. Provide creative outlets, leadership exposure and praise recognizing excellent utilization of their skills. Continual visibility to rising challenges keeps expertise sharply relevant as the organization and its needs develop over time. These pros will propel key priorities amid complexity, if you removal roadblocks and keep communicating strategic alignment.
While every employee and organization differs slightly, these principles form a playbook to diagnose needs and strengths per quadrant. Alongside training and hiring decisions, real-time application is vital for progress. We’ll cover exactly how later on. First, let’s contrast matrices with a closely related analysis.
Comparing Skill Will and Competency Matrices
While often confused, competency matrices differ from skill/will analysis – but with complementary benefits. Competency mapping charts required skills for role success against proficiency levels employees demonstrate, exposing gaps:
Image source: Creately
Competency mapping fuels tangible hiring criteria and training goals but lacks motivational context driving utilization. Conversely, skill/will matrices reveal degrees of engagement for activating talents.
Together, both techniques provide multilayered workforce insights not gleaned from either alone. Competency analysis feeds tactical job requirements, while skill/will energizes strategy realizing upside potential.
Now let’s spotlight common skill/will matrix applications that deliver value.
Key Applications of Skill Will Matrix Analysis
While we’ve overviewed several use cases already, common ways managers specifically apply skill/will insights include:
Agile/DevOps Teams – Given velocity demands, mapping both capabilities and readiness allows staffing projects based on member strengths. Matrices also inform training investments to expand team flexibility.
Leadership Transitions – Onboarding as a new manager lets you quickly orient to inheriting employee landscape across matrix quadrants. Bidirectional analysis conveys expectations around development or autonomy.
Post-Pandemic Return – After extended absence and displacement from offices, reskilling and reengagement requires assessing newfound attitudes and erosion of once-sharp abilities. Reacclimate through updated matrices.
Mergers & Acquisitions – Determine work allocation fit across integrated divisions by evaluating new staff for deployment readiness. Soften culture clashes through skills transfer and remotivation.
Restructures – Cut costs while minimizing productivity loss by parlaying talent into growth domains through reskilling investments. Identify projected leaders for elevation.
Professional Growth Tracking – Beyond one-off diagnosis, updated matrices provide employee visibility into advancement while allowing leadership to spot rising and falling competencies for proactive mentoring.
Now we’re ready to construct your own skill will matrix.
How to Build a Skill Will Matrix Step-By-Step
Through the following steps, you can deploy this powerful workforce analysis technique:
1. Survey Employees on Skills and Will
Create a questionnaire evaluating both skill and will factors. Consider anonymous responses to reduce bias. Assess skill via questions around expertise, education, certifications and experience. Evaluate will by engagement levels, work perceptions and vision.
2. Compile Skill Data and Will Data
Aggregate survey responses related to capabilities, talent and engagement. Using a matrix template (covered shortly), plot initial skill and will scores along their respective spectrums from low to high.
3. Analyze Quadrant Distribution
Identify trends around clusterings within each quadrant. For example, if most engineers group into high skill areas, their capabilities may satisfy current projects well. But that leaves risk should some depart suddenly. Use insights to create development plans and contingency strategies.
4. Set Goals and Re-Evaluate Frequently
Establish clear objectives for addressing skill gaps, boosting low engagement and otherwise acting upon matrix findings over the next quarter. Re-evaluate regularly to maintain currency as initiatives and employees evolve.
Now let’s showcase template options to simplify execution.
Skill Will Matrix Templates
Plenty of free templates exist to assist matrix creation. Here are two top contenders:
Creately – Web and desktop-based diagramming software with pre-made matrices ready for inputting custom workforce data. Easily generate visual organizational charts. Offers free trials.
Scilife – Specialized for healthcare, this downloadable Excel template replaces quadrants with multi-tiered proficiency columns revealing gaps. While generalized, still provides preliminary structure.
Both integrate smoothly across systems enabling collaborative analysis by leadership teams.
Now let’s wrap up with recommendations to keep matrices dynamic.
Recommendations for Ongoing Matrix Optimization
While initial creation delivers that “a-ha” moment regarding your staff’s capabilities and motivations, the matrix truly thrives through continual refinement reflecting ever-changing initiatives and employees themselves.
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Set specific, measurable goals for closing skill gaps and boosting engagement based on quadrant findings. Establish deadlines and regular progress reviews.
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Re-evaluate the matrix quarterly to realign with shifting priorities. New challenges emerge, restructuring occurs; ensure your analysis keeps pace.
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Address persistent gaps through deeper diagnosis followed by targeted training and mentoring.
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Motivate disengaged employees by reconnecting work to individual strengths and talents. Convey line of sight linking daily tasks to company mission.
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Publicly recognize high Skill/Will performers as they modeling successes the organization wants to replicate. This further fuels engagement.
Just like the workforce it evaluates, the skill will matrix demands flexibility and responsiveness itself to drive ongoing value. By continually refreshing the lens on your team’s mosaic of talent, you’ll lead confidently into the future.
Now go unlock your team’s potential through skill will matrix creation! You’ve got this.
