According to a recent LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report:

• 92% of executives agree there is a skill gap issue in the US workforce

• 90% of executives believe that L&D programs would help close the gap

But the #1 challenge for L&D is getting employees to make time for learning and development.

What a dilemma!

How do you fix it?  Get them to learn WHILE they perform their regular work.  Sound too easy?  Well, it almost is.  We already know that learning on the job, “workflow learning”, is the most effective way of making learning stick… we just need a way of adding more structure to it. 

Enter skill practices.  These are essentially a step-by-step guide for helping someone do something they need to do in their job, while they perform that task.  Therefore, there is no time taken away from the job for “learning”.  It simply transfers.

In other words, if someone needs to be able to do something in their job in order to perform their part of corporate strategy, that “something” is part of their competency model, and skill practices are competency-based learning. 

Here are some examples.

Skill 1: Build a relationship strategy

Skill Practice: Pick an external or internal customer, and walk through all the steps to list applicable people, determine the role you want them to play (point B) and their current role (point A), and build an action plan for getting each person from point A to point B. When the skill practice is completed, the relationship strategy will be built and the action plan is ready to execute.

Skill 2: Develop mutual accountability for projects

Skill Practice: Choose a project where you have responsibility for deliverables. Identify the resources required for each part of the project. Build an enrollment strategy for each individual, focusing on how your goals and their goals align and why doing their part of your project is good for them. Plan your accountability and measurement strategy, including risk mitigation — how will you know if they’re doing their part and what will you do if they fail to live up to promises? When the skill practice is completed, you’ll have a specific plan for ensuring you can get each required resource to do their part, which ensures your project will be successful. And it’s ready to execute.

When you consider that the LinkedIn Report also says that business impact is the #1 measure desired by CEOs and only 8% currently see the business impact of L&D, you can see that skill practices have the unique ability to connect the dots for executives like nothing else.  If the skill level of someone in some competency is at one proficiency level, (based on their competency assessment) and they use a skill practice that actually solidifies the new behavior on the job, then their proficiency level goes up.  Think about this in terms of being able to build a business case, being able to influence with a presentation, being able to derive insight from trends… that’s how you get to the business impact.

Skill practices may seem to be a nirvana-like solution to a burning L&D issue, but the reality is you can purchase them inexpensively from us, or built them yourself in a day.

There is no more practical way to use your end of year budget dollars than this!

Learn more about skill practices and drive your business impact!

Also available at ATD and LinkedIn.