Do not carry out a skills audit instead carry out a Staff Capacity Assessment

Most organizations mistakenly treat qualification or skills audits as a silver bullet for performance issues. However, these audits focus narrowly on credentials, certifications, or technical abilities, ignoring the cognitive alignment and behavioral fit required for complex roles. This oversight leads to systemic inefficiencies: executives micromanaging tactical tasks, high-potential employees stagnating in misaligned roles, and avoidable turnover.

A Staff Capacity Assessment solves this by evaluating an employee’s actual ability to handle role complexity—not just their resume. Here’s how it works, why it matters, and how to implement it.

The Problem with Traditional Skills Audits

Skills audits catalog technical competencies (e.g., software proficiency, certifications) but fail to address two critical factors:

1. Cognitive Ability: An employee’s problem-solving capacity and mental bandwidth for strategic thinking.
2. Behavioral Fit: Personality traits and motivations that align (or clash) with role demands.

For example, a marketing manager might excel at campaign execution (a skill) but lack the cognitive ability to analyze multi-year market trends—a requirement for senior leadership. Skills audits miss this disconnect, leaving organizations with technically qualified but strategically ineffective teams.

How Staff Capacity Assessments Work: Jaques’ Model and Role Complexity

Developed by organizational psychologist Elliott Jaques, the Level of Work Model categorizes roles by their time-span of discretion—the longest period an employee must plan and act autonomously.

1. Level 1-2 Roles: Short-term tasks (e.g., data entry, customer service).
2. Level 4-5 Roles: Strategic planning with 2–5 year horizons (e.g., CFOs, department heads).
3. Level 6+ Roles: Visionary leadership shaping 10+ year organizational futures (e.g., CEOs of global enterprises).

A Staff Capacity Assessment maps employees to these levels using three metrics:

1. Current Operating Level (COL): The role’s complexity tier, determined by job grading.
2. Current Actual Capability (CAC): The employee’s proven ability to operate at their COL.
3. Current Potential Capability (CPC): The highest level they could reach with development.

The Hidden Cost of Role-Capacity Mismatches

When an employee’s CAC falls below their COL, they instinctively simplify the role to their comfort zone. A CEO meant to drive 5-year strategies (COL Level 5) might regress to micromanaging daily operations (CAC Level 3), stifling innovation and team morale. Conversely, high CPC employees stuck in low-COL roles become disengaged, often leaving for competitors.

A 2022 study by Gartner found that 67% of leadership failures stemmed from such mismatches, costing organizations an average of 7% annual revenue in lost productivity and turnover.

Implementing a Staff Capacity Assessment: 4 Key Steps

1. Grade Roles by Complexity
2. Use frameworks like Patterson Job Grading or Jaques’ model to assign roles to complexity tiers. Avoid conflating job titles with true complexity—e.g., a “Senior Manager” in a startup may operate at Level 3, while the same title in a multinational spans Level 5.
3. Assess Employee Capacity
4. Combine cognitive testing (e.g., Wonderlic), behavioral assessments (e.g., Hogan HPI), and performance reviews to determine CAC and CPC. For accuracy, involve industrial psychologists or certified HR analysts.
5. Identify and Address Gaps
6. Employees operating below their COL require immediate action:
7. Reassign low-CAC employees to roles matching their capability.
8. Provide mentorship and stretch assignments to high-CPC employees.
9. Overhaul hiring criteria if cognitive gaps persist across teams.
10. Integrate with Succession Planning
11. High-CPC employees are succession candidates. Pair them with Level 6+ mentors to prepare for future leadership roles.

Case Study: Fixing a Broken Leadership Pipeline

A financial services firm discovered that 40% of its mid-level managers (COL Level 4) operated at CAC Level 2–3 due to overpromotion during rapid growth. After reassigning mismatched managers and promoting high-CPC individual contributors:

1. Employee retention improved by 28% in 12 months.
2. Decision-making speed increased by 35% as roles aligned with capabilities.

Why Skills Audits Are Obsolete

Skills audits focus on what employees know, not how they think. They cannot diagnose:

1. A sales director’s inability to interpret long-term market analytics.
2. An engineer’s resistance to collaborative problem-solving.
3. A high-potential employee’s readiness for executive-level ambiguity.

By contrast, Staff Capacity Assessments expose these gaps, enabling proactive fixes.

Getting Started

1. Audit Critical Roles: Start with leadership positions or high-turnover teams.
2. Train Assessors: Certify HR teams in Jaques’ model and cognitive testing.
3. Communicate Transparently: Position assessments as growth opportunities, not evaluations.