13. Knowledge and Skills Management
What is it?
This process seeks to ensure that all employees impacted by the change have the requisite knowledge and skills to change their ways of working in line with the business change objectives. The assessment documents current knowledge and skills with a view to understanding the gaps between current and future capabilities.
Why do it?
Complete this process in order to:
- Understand the new competencies and capabilities that are required to deliver the desired change initiative outcomes and new ways of working
- Support employees to develop the skills, capabilities and knowledge required to perform in new roles or use new systems
When to do it?
Skills assessment should happen early in the Design phase once the change impacts are known. Development plans should be created during the Develop phase for implementation during the Deliver and Sustain phases
Inputs
Future State Definition and Roadmap
Change Impact Assessment
Outputs
Competency Needs Analysis (paper in progress)
Competency Needs Framework Guidance (paper in progress)
How to do it?
Definitions:
- Skills – the mastery of techniques and knowledge that applies to a specific area or profession. A threshold level of skill is typically necessary for a job
- Competencies – at an individual level, the behaviours, skills and knowledge needed to effectively perform in a role (ie, ‘what skills look like when put into practice on the job’)
- Capabilities – at an organisational level, the skills, competencies, behaviours and knowledge employed by the workforce to achieve the organisation’s goals and objectives, meet future challenges and build the capacity for change
The first step in this process is to identify the key capabilities required for the new ways of working in order to make the Future State a reality.
The next step is then to identify the skills required to achieve these organisational capabilities.
This work will build on the process steps to create the
Future State Definition and Roadmap, the
Target Operating Model and the
Behaviour Change Scales. Through these processes you will have identified the changes required in the workforce in order to realise the change initiative benefits.
The University has developed a generic set of competencies for Personal Effectiveness, Leadership & Management and Networking, Coaching and Mentoring. The People Development Team can help with the development of specific competencies for your business area – speak to your HR Business Partner to find out more about this.
Using the
Competency Needs Analysis (paper in progress), the Change Leadership team should identify the key competencies that will be required for the new ways of working and should also identify the levels of ‘mastery’ required for each role.
Working with their line manager, each affected member of staff should identify their current levels of mastery against each of the required competencies.
As well as skills, you should consider what knowledge each individual requires to carry out their job as well as identifying the required behaviours to support and sustain the new ways of working.
Once you have the ‘to be’ requirement and the ‘as is’ assessment you can work to develop individual and team development plans to bridge the gap.
Tool:
The Competency Needs Framework Guidance (paper in progress) will help you identify the relevant competencies and levels of mastery required to support your new ways of working.
Template:
Complete the Competency Needs Analysis (paper in progress) for each role.
The creation of a development plan is part of the PDR process and the new ePDR tool will help you complete an appropriate development plan.
It is important to note that a development plan should consider a wide range of approaches to developing the required capabilities:
- Personal reading & research
- Shadowing
- Mentoring
- Secondments
- On-line training
- Training courses
If formal training is identified as the most effective means of achieving the required capabilities you can search for appropriate training using the
University's training catalogue or speak to your HR Business Partner about any training not currently offered.