Do You Have a Skills Gap at Your Organization?

Updated October 2026

Is your team struggling to reach its full potential? Are new technologies changing the skills you need faster than your workforce can adapt? You could be dealing with a skills gap.

A skills gap is the difference between the skills your organization needs and the skills your workforce currently has. Sometimes, that gap is easy to spot. You need a particular technical skill, and no one on the team has it. Other times, it shows up through missed goals, persistent bottlenecks, underused technology, or work that simply takes longer than it should.

And as technology changes the way we work, the skills organizations need are changing, too. The OECD reports that AI is shifting skill requirements across the labor market, making workforce development increasingly important as organizations adapt to AI-enabled work.

So, do you have a skills gap at your organization? Here’s how to find out, and what you can do about it.

How to Identify a Skills Gap

Identifying a skills gap starts with understanding where your organization is today and where it needs to go. That usually requires looking beyond a single metric.

Review Key Performance Indicators

KPIs can help you see where performance isn’t meeting expectations. Depending on the role or department, that could include:

Quality and consistency of work
Output
Time required to complete work
Revenue or other business outcomes
Employee utilization
Customer or client feedback

But don’t assume every performance problem is a skills problem. A missed KPI could have several causes. Use performance data as a starting point, then dig deeper to understand why the gap exists.

Conduct Skills Assessments

Skills assessments can give you a clearer picture of the capabilities already on your team. The key is assessing skills employees actually need for their work rather than evaluating knowledge that isn’t relevant to their roles.

You can also compare your team’s current capabilities against upcoming priorities. A workforce that has exactly the right skills for today’s work may still face a gap if the business is preparing to introduce new technologies, services, or ways of working.

Talk to the People Doing the Work

Data can tell you where something is going wrong. Your people can often tell you why.

Talk with employees and managers about where work gets stuck, tasks that consistently require outside help, and areas where teams need more training or support. These conversations can reveal capability gaps that aren’t obvious from performance metrics alone.

Compare Skills Against Future Needs

Don’t limit your skills gap analysis to what your business needs today. Think about where you’re heading.

What projects are on the horizon? What technology is being introduced? And what capabilities will your teams need to support your business strategy? Taking a forward-looking view can help you address gaps before they become bigger obstacles.

What Are Common Skills Gaps?

There isn’t one universal list of skills every organization needs. Your most important capabilities depend on your industry, work, technology, and business goals.

Technical and hard skills might include data literacy and analysis, cybersecurity, cloud technologies, software and application skills, or specialized expertise unique to your industry. But don’t overlook human skills. Communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, adaptability, and leadership continue to matter as technology evolves.

In fact, AI is making some of those abilities especially important. A 2026 IBM study found that 57% of CHROs identified critical thinking and problem framing among the most important skills in the AI era.

AI Skills Gaps Are Becoming a Major Workforce Challenge

One skills gap deserves particular attention right now: AI.

But an AI skills gap doesn’t mean everyone at your organization suddenly needs to become an AI engineer. Different employees need different levels of AI knowledge based on their roles and responsibilities.

The OECD reported in June 2026 that fewer than 1% of workers require advanced AI skills, while most workers need broader digital skills and the ability to use, analyze, and interpret data. The organization also identified managerial abilities and human skills such as problem-solving, creativity, and innovation as important alongside technical capabilities. For organizations, that can mean looking for gaps across several areas:

AI literacy: Do employees understand what AI can and can’t do?
Applied AI skills: Can employees appropriately use the AI tools relevant to their work?
Technical AI skills: Do the roles that require deeper AI expertise have the necessary capabilities?
Critical thinking and judgment: Can your people evaluate AI-generated information rather than accept it at face value?
AI leadership: Do leaders understand where AI fits into the organization’s broader goals?

That last point matters because successful adoption isn’t just about access to technology. A lack of relevant skills can limit AI adoption for many businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises. Identifying the specific AI capabilities your organization needs can help you invest in the right skills instead of approaching AI training as a one-size-fits-all exercise.

How to Close a Skills Gap

Once you’ve identified a gap, you have options. The right solution depends on the skill, your timeline, and the work you’re trying to accomplish.

Upskill and Reskill Your Existing Workforce

If you already have great people who need additional capabilities, training may be the logical first step. Upskilling helps employees build new or deeper skills that support their current work. Reskilling prepares employees to take on different work or move into new roles.

With technology changing quickly, development doesn’t need to be a one-time training event. Role-specific learning, mentorship, hands-on experience, and knowledge sharing can all help people continue building relevant skills.

Hire for Skills You Don’t Have

Sometimes the capability you need doesn’t currently exist within your organization or can’t be developed quickly enough internally. Strategic hiring can bring specialized expertise onto your team while helping you plan for future workforce needs. That might mean hiring permanent employees, contract talent, or another workforce configuration based on what the work requires.

Bring in Specialized Expertise

Not every skills gap is simply a hiring problem. A cloud migration, data initiative, application modernization project, cybersecurity need, or AI implementation may require broader expertise, delivery resources, or a specialized team. In those situations, bringing in consulting expertise can help address the business challenge while providing access to capabilities your organization doesn’t maintain in-house.

DOWNLOAD: Insight Global’s Enterprise AI Toolkit

Build the Skills Your Business Needs Next

Closing a skills gap starts with understanding the work ahead and being honest about the capabilities you have today. Sometimes the answer is developing the people already on your team. Sometimes it’s hiring specialized talent. And sometimes you need a consulting partner and dedicated team to help solve a larger business or technology challenge.

Insight Global helps organizations navigate all three. Our foundation as a talent company has given us deep experience connecting businesses with the people and skills they need. Today, we build on that foundation through talent, consulting, and AI solutions designed around what our clients are working to accomplish.

Whether you’re trying to strengthen your workforce, tackle a complex initiative, or determine how AI fits into the future of your business, we’ll meet you where you are and help you build what’s next.