A Note from the CEO
Competency-based Management initiatives are getting
easier. Well - maybe some parts of the process are getting easier.
This month we are taking a closer look at a couple of tools and one
customer case study that are smoothing the road to successful
Competency initiatives.
I have long been an advocate for a Competency approach to
employee development. However, the path to realize this approach
operationally has generally been painful. Once you have labored over
the development of the 'ideal' job skills profile, getting an
employee to accept that they have deficiences is not an easy task.
Then the onus is back on the company to help the employee close that
gap - again, a difficult process.
I am excited by the trend
of learning becoming more 'granular'. We see this principally in the
adoption of Learning Content engines. We also see this in shorter
classroom courses and content vendors beginning to offer modular
versions of their courseware. These changes are allowing a tailored
approach to development interventions that was not previously
possible.
The concept of then developing job profiles and
tying specific development activities to any known skills gap is
becoming a reality. However, the path is still not necessarily
smooth. In the words of our customer, Rockwell Collins: "It is
getting easier but is still people dependent". It takes a strong
team and a solid vision to be able to execute on the opportunity of
Competency-based Management. Good luck in your own efforts in this
arena!
What do we do? rapidLD provides consulting services focused in
the learning industry. Our consulting offerings evolve around four
Customer questions:
1) Where do I start? (Strategy
and Business Plan Development),
2) Who do I
partner with? (Vendor Analysis and Selection),
3)
How do I maximize my investment? (Deployment) and
4) How do I manage the implementation that I have?
(Outsourcing).
If you think that we might collaborate
on one of these topics and want more information, edit your
Interests (at the bottom of the page) and we will send you more
information.
We have seen many customers realize fabulous benefits from
learning technologies. We hope that you have that same success!
Visit our Home
on the Web!
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Dear Guest,
Welcome to rapidLD's March issue of The eLearning
evolution (e2). Spring is in full bloom
(literally) in Atlanta - we hope that you get to enjoy this
time of year soon. Enjoy this months features...and refer
a friend!
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Will You Be Ready When The Next Talent Shortage
Arrives? |
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Bill Byron Concevitch
Senior Vice-
President, KnowledgePool
With all of the economic and political uncertainty
surrounding us today, it is easy to take our eye off of the
longer term-the next few years and beyond. If we fall
into this trap, however, it is simply an opportunity for our
competition.
As the economy turns around and the
political dust settles, will your organization be in a
position to hold onto critical talent and to know what talent
you need to win ahead of your competition? Do you remember the
tight labor market of the late 1990s? It will be even worse as
we move through this decade, warns the current business best
seller, Impending Crisis: Too Many Jobs, Too Few
People (Oakhill Press, 2003). We're heading for a
shortage of 10,033,000 workers by 2010 explain the authors,
reporting what they see in data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. It's more serious, they emphasize, because "A"
players will be even more difficult to attract and hold.
So what should employers do? Authors Roger Herman, Tom
Olivo, and Joyce Gioia urge higher selectivity (purge
non-productive employees) and greater attention toward
retention and optimization of top talent. As the economy
improves, people will have plenty of choices about where they
work. They'll be asking tough questions about why they should
join a company or why they should stay.
If you are not
looking at this issue as a top strategic imperative, and also
exploring the technology that can help you effectively manage
and leverage a talent management and optimization initiative,
perhaps it's time to do so.
For more information
about KnowledgePool and their work in Human Capital
Management, click here>>
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Customer Connection - Rockwell
Collins |
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 Competency Initiative Best Practices - Cliff
Purington
Practice Makes Perfect! At least that is our goal at
Rockwell with respect to Competency initiatives. We are on our
third run at Competency Management and are getting better in
the process.
Today, Rockwell Collins has rolled out
its competency solution to six divisions. We have built
hundreds of job profiles, roles and skills. Assessments are
taking place and business processes have been improved. Our
competency deployment methodology is solid and our marketing
is producing results. Over the past couple of years, we have
learned many lessons and have been forced to change directions
and reinforce our vision on many occasions. However, the path
is getting clearer.
Here are a few lessons we learned
during this journey:
1) Be strong in your vision -
it is a bumpy road at every turn (have a clear strategic
imperative to the initiative). Sell competency management as a
strategic value-added initiative for the organization, or it
won't stick as a priority. Determine a clear purpose for why
you are doing competency management and what you are driving
towards as an organization. Look across the organization to
see where other initiatives can link in or how competency
management might support other initiatives.
2) Involve
the right players - Have a person or group that is the
steering point for enterprise-wide integration so that
everyone uses it in the same manner. This will allow you to do
an organization-wide analysis of competency gaps once the
system has been fully configured and deployed. It is still
about people - many people in the company have to buy into the
program. Choose your interviewers carefully. The interviewer
needs to have a good knowledge of competencies and a strong
skill set for interviewing and assessing individuals.
Interview only the best people in each position. Secure
administrative support for handling logistics (e.g., interview
set-up, data entry) while front-runners are busy managing the
rest of the process.
3) Set expectations -
Determine the success factors up front with each organization
so you set expectations for what the yields they will harvest
from this process. Discuss with each organization how gaps
discovered in the competency management process can be used as
a launching point for semi-annual performance review
conversations. Discuss process and timeline with each group so
they are clear on their roles and responsibilities and
milestones along the way. Plan for the competency management
process to take longer than expected even with a good plan. It
is a huge coordination effort.
4) Expect resistance in
execution - Manage accordingly. Operate with speed and be
ready to move when your customer is ready. Keep the process
moving quickly so your customer doesn't lose interest in it.
Know what is "good enough" in terms of the level of detail -
too much bogs down the system and its users; not enough detail
makes it a waste of time to assess. Plan for resistance.
Ensure that the people involved in overseeing the integration
keep it going even when they run into tough spots of
organizational resistance. Be sure to set the stage with the
interviewees on the purpose and intended outcomes of
competency management, so there is no fear that it is a tool
to drive layoff/firing decisions.
We will get better
at Competency Management and, from our perspective, Practice
Makes Perfect!
To
read more about how Rockwell has made the transition to a
Learning Organization in Cliff's new book, click here
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What's COOL...What's
HOT... |
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 Competency Projects: Modify or Create?
Competency Modeling, Skills Profiling, Succession Planning,
Human Capital Management, Talent Management, Training
Interventions, Competency Assessment, Skill Gap Analysis -
Holy Skills Dictionary Batman! What could all this mean and is
there a way to simplify the competency process?
The
answer is yes! You don't need to get your Ph.D. in
Organizational Development before you develop your own
competency model. By following a few guidelines, you can limit
the required investment in your competency project so that you
can quickly see some results. Begin by considering the
following things:
1) Partner with a reputable
vendor that has proven product(s), customer success stories
and deployment processes.
2) Adopt a set of
standards for your competency model, including terminology,
business processes and the structure of the model
itself.
3) Formulate a phased approach to
development and implementation. rapidLD recommends starting by
deploying to one pilot group that contains 10-40 unique job
profiles. This pilot group will help you develop and document
your processes and standards, and will provide a valuable set
of lessons learned that when leveraged will make the next
phase more efficient and affective.
4) Creating your
skill definitions from scratch is time consuming, expensive
and it requires highly specialized resources. Instead of
creating each skill on your own, try modifying a set of skills
from a preexisting skills dictionary. Modifying instead of
creating can reduce your service costs by 30-60% and can
reduce your development time by up to 40%.
One of the
leading Skills Dictionaries on the market today has been
developed by Interpersonal Technologies Group, Inc. (ITG). The
ITG Competency and Skill Dictionaries contain thousands of
skills, hundreds of job roles and dozens of job families. By
offering regular updates to the Skill Dictionary, ITG can
assist your organization in the difficult task of maintaining
your competency model and monitoring emerging skills for
today's markets.
Click here
for more information ITG & their Skill Dictionaries
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Let's Get Personal |
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Did you know you can receive personalized supplements
to the eLearning evolution?
Click on Update
your profile at the bottom of this email and select
Consulting Tools within your 'Areas of Interest'.
Beginning in late March, we will be distributing a second
email with Consulting Tools to those people that have selected
an appropriate category. Note that we have now added Business
Process Outsourcing of Learning Technology to our interest
categories!
But Note - you only get the link if you select 'Consulting
Tools' when you 'Update your profile'. So click on Update
your profile now to 'get Personal' with rapidLD!
Also - note that we have added a link at the bottom,
'Forward email' - this allows you to send this
newsletter to up to FIVE friends with one click. Go ahead -
try it!!
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rapidLD eLearning evolution (e2)
Overview |
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If you haven't been to our web site recently, check out
the latest updates, including the new eLearning evolution
(e2) overview.
More
info>>
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