Understanding your team’s skillsets and strengths

In the charity sector, where resources are often limited, tapping into your team member’s unique skill sets and strengths is crucial. It is not just about ‘making do’ with what’s available, but rather a strategic and empowering strategy to achieve more with less.

Charities that embrace this collaborative approach can navigate internal resource constraints more effectively and build a culture of learning, continual development, and shared success.

Understanding and appreciating the individual skills of team members enables your charity to make the most of what you have and helps you achieve more with fewer resources.

We have created a workshop to help you identify and learn about each other’s skills and strengths. This is a small workshop for your team, and all you will need is a room/space big enough for everyone to attend.

How to structure your skills workshop

• Each participant will need a pen and a large sheet of paper
• The workshop lasts for 1 hour
  • 5 minute introduction
  • 25 minutes for creating ‘skills stalls’
  • 30 minutes for team review

How to run your skills workshop

• Set the scene and explain to the group that they are in a market, setting up a stall to buy and sell their skills
• On large pieces of paper, invite each member of your team to draw out a market stall with room for three sections:

1. 1.      Current skills (that allow me to do my job)
   2.      Hidden skills (you might not know I have)
   3.      Desired skills (I want to develop or learn)

• Encourage your team to get creative with their market stall and to spend time completing each section
• Once completed, ask each team member to stick their ‘skills stall’ on the wall so that it’s visible to the whole group
• As a group, visit each of the stalls so that each team member can share their skills with the rest of the group
• Encourage your team to write their initials next to skills they can help others develop or skills they wish to develop themselves

By the end of this workshop, you will have a greater understanding of the skills that you have within your team and where development and training would be beneficial.

Good luck!