Now you have a model that people can easily assess against for both upskilling in their current job and also reskilling to learn a new role (career planning and workforce agility). It will define any skill gaps and tell them exactly what learning level of activity they need to develop. It will make them self-sufficient and able to capitalize on intrinsic motivation and a growth mindset. And it tells you exactly what learning content you need to close your organizational skill gaps and position it for future success.
Today we will answer a common question, How can we use competency models to develop a competency-based training program for supervisors? Like any other role, a competency model for supervisors will focus on those tasks they need to perform to achieve their part of the corporate strategy. This likely includes people management and technical/functional tasks/skills. Competency-based learning is where you map learning activities to the entire competency model. You want to do this including activities across the 70-20-10 model (experiential-collaborative-formal).
When you make your competency model accessible and assessable, whatever competency assessment system you choose must support making these changes easily. If it’s too difficult, it won’t happen, and then your competency model will be out of sync with strategy.
The Institute for the Future says that 85 percent of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven't yet been invented. Guess what? That means that jobs that do exist today will be replaced by those new jobs. And it won’t take until 2030 to happen. It’s happening now.
For competency-based learning to be sustainable, the competency model must be agile. Competency models describe what someone in a particular role should be able to do to perform their part of corporate strategy. If your strategy is changing regularly (and I believe that for your organization to continue to survive, it will), then your competency model has to change/adapt as well.
A competency model should reflect business values. The tasks and skills in the model define what that individual needs to do to be successful. If your organization values customer focus above all else, then it is likely that every job in the company will have some skill in their model that reflects internal or customer focus.
In our experience, using competency models to drive intrinsic motivation for professional development works for everyone. If you look at Dan Pink’s research in DRIVE, it is a human characteristic to be motivated to mastery. It’s why we work on our golf game or learn musical instruments for fun. It’s why open source software and Wikipedia exist.
When you look at the assessment data over time and correlate that data with business metrics, you can measure improvement in both skills and results over time. What’s more, you’ll know which skills are drivers of business results. That is if skills improve, but results do not, you may want to alter your competency model to focus on other skills that are more important to success.
