The COVID-19 pandemic brought massive changes to the world of work. Beginning in February, 2020, working from home suddenly transitioned from being a perk limited to a few employees to being the norm for over half of employed Americans. The latest survey says that half of those working from home now would like to continue doing so, for at least part of the week if not for all of it. At the same time, many other employees lost jobs that they are not likely to get back.
Staffing has changed, workflows have changed, and we are not done with the pandemic. All of that means L&D is going to be challenged with reskilling and upskilling the workforce. The economic recovery depends on how quickly skill sets can be updated or matched to new requirements. In addition, some important skill sets were already in short supply before the lockdowns, and this is also a concern.
Organizations are looking for a plan to provide the right training at the right time as part of the strategic plan as they go through constantly changing business conditions in the next 12-18 months. The questions that L&D must must answer include determining the specific training needs, the timing of the training, the delivery methods, and the business priorities. The way to answer those questions is real-time analytics that deal with competencies.
A competency is the combinations of skills, abilities, and knowledge needed to perform a specific task. Assembling the competencies required for a job into a framework makes it possible to develop training that will enable employees and the organization to be successful. At the same time, learning and performance data collected by an organization will identify gaps in skills and experience, and comparison to organizational strategic requirements will identify the priority for addressing those gaps.
Data from competency systems will facilitate developing a competency-based learning model. Catherine Kovar, a principal advisor of customer adoption for Kahuna Workforce Solutions, will present “Make the Switch: Drive Learning & Development with Data-Driven Analytics” at the Learning Solutions Online Conference on July 8 and 9, 2020. The event includes seven more of the top sessions from the full Learning Solutions Conference that was planned for earlier this spring.
Catherine will explain what a competency-based learning model contains and how it applies to the current situation affecting business and workforce; along with competency structure fundamentals, where the data comes from, and how it impacts the training. She will also provide an example of a business engagement framework structure.
You can register for this online event or get a Learning Guild Online Conference Subscription to access Catherine’s session plus the other seven in the event, and all online conferences for the next year, plus much more. If you registered for Learning Solutions 2020 or Realities360 Conference & Expo, you will be granted free access to this online event.