How do I create competency-based learning that address needs of different business units with shared development goals?

If you work in Learning and Development in either a federated hub-and-spokes model (where you provide strategy and content for counterparts in each business unit) or you own L&D for the corporation, you look to be efficient. You want to be able to create competency-based learning content that addresses the needs of different business units.

Your competency-based learning strategy

Think of this process as a many to many relationship. On the one side, you have an inventory of skills, and on the other side you have an inventory of learning opportunities across the 70-20-10 spectrum.

• One skill may be required by multiple roles across different business units.

  • It is the competency model process that identifies which skills best define a job role.

• One learning opportunity may close the gap of many skills across many different roles.

  • It is the competency-based learning mapping process which defines which of the learning opportunities are best suited to close a specific skill gap for a job role.

1. Start by defining role-based competency models

A role-based competency model should be a list of all the tasks or skills that someone in a particular role needs to do at a target level in order to be successful in that role. And success means that they are achieving their part of corporate strategy – what the organization needs them to do in their role. (Click here for how to get a competency model)

Be sure your models include “Future Of Work” skills required in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, so you are forward thinking.

2. Create a matrix that defines shared skills

In a table or spreadsheet, list all the tasks (defined through your competency modeling process or from purchased capability models) for all roles in all business units. At the top, list all the roles and list the target proficiency for each role in that task/skill. We call this a Task Proficiency Analysis.

These may include technical skills, core skills (aka soft skills), and leadership skills.

3. Create competency-based learning

The competency-based learning process is where you map the behaviors of the target level of proficiency to the learning objectives of the activities.

To be most effective, you’d like to have a skill practice, job aid, or checklist that will help someone be able to learn the right skills while they are doing their work. We call this embedded or workflow learning (the “70” in the 70-20-10 model). It’s effective because it’s not separate from the work that needs to be done. People can’t say they, “I have no time for learning”.

What is ideal, though, is being able to create competency-based learning activities that address the needs across business units. Consider the task “Resolve issues quickly and thoroughly”. It would be easy to create a skill practice that enables a person to pick an issue they are dealing with right now, in their business unit. It would go on to walk them through the steps to define the problem, gather data, brainstorm and evaluate alternatives, and implement the selected alternative to resolve the issue. And that then would be a valuable activity across roles in various business units.

When creating that activity, you’ll want to be sure to look at the highest target level of proficiency to ensure the activity will get them to that proficiency level, even if it’s an optional step in the skill practice. You’ll do that by looking at the behaviors for that target level of proficiency and ensuring that the learning objective of the skill practice takes them there. For example, if the primary difference between a level 3 and level 4 is the type of problem being solved, where level 3 is resolving an issue within your department and level 4 is resolving an issue that involves multiple departments, then step 1 in your skill practice could be, “If you’re looking to get to level 3, select an issue that you can resolve within your department. If you’re looking to get to level 4, select an issue that will require collaboration across departments.”

(Click here for how to get competency-based learning or click here for how to get informal learning)

4. Prioritize competency-based learning activity creation

You may already have learning opportunities that can meet the competency-based learning requirements for defined tasks. If so, you’ll simply align them to those tasks so that your competency assessment and personalized learning system can recommend them to the right people at the right time.

If you have gaps to fill, there are 3 ways you can prioritize learning opportunity creation.

1)      Prioritize competency-based learning activities that address the most roles. If task 1 is shared by 20 roles and task 2 is shared by 3 roles, you may want to work on activities for task 1.

2)      Prioritize activity creation that addresses the most critical roles. If task 1 is shared by 20 roles and task 2 is shared by 3 roles, but those 3 roles are critical to company success (e.g., Sales, R&D in an innovation-centric organization, Logistics in a distribution company) you may want to work on activities for task 2.

3)      Prioritize competency-based learning development based on real demand/skills gaps, as the result of competency assessment data. This enables you to be most effective. If competency-assessment results show that 500 people have a skill gap in task 1, and 25 people have a skill gap in task 2, you may want to focus on activities for task 1.

Summary

In other words, it is easy to create competency-based learning to address the needs of different business units with shared development goals. It starts with knowing who needs to be able to do what, and how well. That’s a role-based competency model. Matrix it out across business units. Add competency assessment data for valuable prioritization input. Then get started!