Creating a skill-based organization

When embarking on a culture reliant on skill-based pay and structure, the following should be kept in mind during development and deployment so as to increase the positive impact on criteria, culture, and compensation.

Criteria:
Criteria for skills and assessments can be established through focus groups of “experts” within the organization and external to it.

Establishing criteria:

• Executives and/or strategy group will create a list of grouped competencies for each level of organization
• Executives and/or strategy group will determine the percentage of time spent at each competency grouping
• Executives and/or strategy group create a base list of skills, knowledge, and experiences that they believe increase the performance of individuals based on the identified competencies.
• Review list with groups of people from the following teams:
  * Compensation
  * Human Resources
  * Other senior leaders
  * Front-line leaders
  * Group effected by skills approach

Initial testing development:
In order testing to be acceptable and defendable in court for employment purposes, it must possess the following forms of validity:

• Face Validity – Do the questions read well? Can they be understood?
• Content Validity – Can this be learned somewhere? Is the content of the test within the training?
• Construct Validity – Can the content of the questions be used in the working environment?
• Criterion-related validity – Do those who are successful in the organization do well in the areas being tested?
  

If organizations use an outside agency to create the assessments, they will mostly cover the first three levels of validity and can provide documentation to that effect. This documentation should be requested. For the last piece, organizations can conduct it on their own, usually over a one-year period or contract an outside organization to do so.

If organizations use an outside agency to create the assessments, they should also look to that organization to establish a recommended proficiency level for each assessment.

Future testing implementation:

Allowing individuals to test for a skill after joining the organization may cause the following questions to arise within the effected group:

• Will I have an opportunity to learn this skill here?
• Will I need to learn this skill on my own?
• Will I be compensated for my labor while learning this skill?
• What level of competency will I need to demonstrate in order to prove proficiency within this skill?
• Who determines whether I pass or fail?
• How often can I take the assessments? (Recommendation would be every 6 months but no more than three times within a 2 year period.)
  

If an organization chooses to construct the assessments internally, the following criteria must be in place in order to complete the levels of validity mentioned above:

• General and specific learning objectives
• Sample and population sizes large enough to conduct a statistically valid analysis from the data.
• Time in which to conduct pilots and revise questions based on the four levels of validity. This could take between 3 to 12 months.
• Team of 2-3 analysts who create assessments and analyze training evaluation data based on the following:
  * Satisfaction
  * Knowledge
  *Application

More later on culture and a skill-based organization...

Reinforcement provides a primary impact to application…

The number one reason why training fails is that it is not supported by the leaders after it is delivered. The number one reason learning fails is that it is not reinforced. Both are similar, yet different in their distinct ways.

Leaders who choose not to reiterate the importance of a training event push the trainees further away from the intent of the training class. The mindset of the participant shifts to, “well, if my manager doesn’t know about the class, why should I?” Negativity fosters negativity. If you choose, or your organization chooses, to have training events, then your leaders should attend the training as well. The success of the initial program is always on the training team. However, the long-term impact is felt more in the operations. By recognizing the impact of training, you will need to set a transition point so that your partners in the operations and support areas can pick up where you left off. They will be significantly challenged to do this if they do not have an idea about what was learned within the training. The higher up you go in the organization, the broader your view.

Leaders who choose not to make the content a part of their every day interactions with their staff will assist in the decay of the learning process. Negativity plays a small role here, but lack of usage, lack of interest, and higher levels of priority push out the content of a learning event. The success of a continuous learning process is always on training and development. As training professionals, we need to organize delivery effectively and provide job-aids or reminders at various times after the training. The reinforcement tools provide leaders with opportunities to talk about and direct their staff toward growing from a learning experience rather than just attending a class.

Strategic Planning

It can be simple, or it can be complex…for the most part, it is both. When planning a project, developing a plan that centers around solid, business objectives is a essential to the overall success of that project. However, defining those business objectives may be a challenge. In our results-orientated world, we need to act, and act quickly, otherwise…well, otherwise we will wait to act…and, that may not be a bad thing.

About five years ago, I experienced some pains on the left side of my chest one morning and didn’t know why. In addition to the pains was this tingling feeling in my left arm. I went to work and hoped that the pain would go away as most simple pains do…By the afternoon, the pains started to feel as if they were going through my chest and coming out my back, making sitting through long and boring meetings, well, long and boring…so, I took some pain killers (acetaminophen) and the pain partially subsided within the hour. By dinner time, however, the pain returned. After expressing some concern to my then fiancé, Teri (now my wife), it was decided that I should call the nurse line that we had access to through our place of employment…I really didn’t decide much, it was strongly encouraged.

So, I did what I should have done in the afternoon and called an “expert.” After navigating through the incredibly intricate phone tree that any technician would be proud of, a very nice nurse answered that phone and asked how she could help. I described the symptoms I experienced at that moment. I heard her voice become more concerned as I answered her question about the tingling feeling in my arm, saying, “yes, I had some of that this morning, but it went away.” She paused and asked if someone could drive me to the emergency room. I was about to say, “sure, I can just call…,” when I realized she thought I was having a heart attack…

OK, OK, I have had these problems before and they all were not heart attacks…I know this because the EKG indicated that the first two times. What was I missing? What was she missing? It was at that point that I realized I was missing the most important part to our conversation, the objective for the call. The objective was not to diagnose my pains. The objective was to help me deal with them. I wanted to understand what muscles may be impacted so that I can choose the best form of treatment. I wanted to understand the types of treatment for sore muscles. I had to back up quite a bit in the conversation including adding that two days prior, I was moving large furniture around in the house as we painted each room. Oh, did I forget that in the story here as well…?

The cause of my pain…the objective of my concern…the plan for treatment, not to mention the timing and cost of recovery would have been negatively impacted if I didn’t share the full, bigger picture. Strategic planning involves sharing the larger vision and creating it if needed. Take it from the top, because the show will go on with or without us.

We would use a simple diagram with branching to serve as a stepping-stone platform from which we can develop our strategic goals, communication plan, and implementation strategy without getting lost so far into the details that our customers think we are having daily “heart-attacks.”

Defining Organizational Impact:

• We begin at the beginning. We know what our Vision and Mission are, we even understand the core strategies and initiatives. However, when developing the organizational objectives, alignment to these items is often missed, causing concern, miscommunication, poor training, and eventually a low or negative return on our original investment.
• As we create the objectives at this level, think about the general items that will change for everyone. These become our organizational objectives or main message points.

Defining Cultural Impact:

• In order to understand the cultural impact, understanding the culture itself is important. What main groups make up the culture? What are the common topics for each group?
• As we create the objectives at this level, think about the organization objectives we have defined. These items are a little more specific for each culture, but should be broad enough to touch multiple areas.

Defining Team Impacts:

• Everything a company does effects it employees first and its customers second. In order to positively impact both, we should ask what both groups need for a product to be successful.
• Objectives for this level are more refined and deal with specifics. We will have many more of these than the other two since there are multiple teams.

Diversity enables peak performance…

Change is always a personal thing. We can say that we accept the change within an organization, but the extreme to which we accept it always varies. Just look at any change cycle model if you question this. Each will show you that there are steps one goes through from intrusion/loss to integration/acceptance. We all start at different places along the path to acceptance. However, it is the reinforcement of the message that will lead us to a more positive environment.
If everyone went through change the same way, we would have very little diversity. Without diversity in actions and thoughts, we would be a rather boring company. We would not be able to market our products well since we would only understand our way, which may be different from what our customers prefer. We would not be able to troubleshoot problems because everyone would come up with the same ideas, the same ones that do not work now. If we all accepted the changes in the same way, we would not be able to grow as a company and as individuals. We would stay where we are personally and professionally.

While supporting an idea or direction is good business sense, supplying alternatives to the approach and offering suggestions for improvements should be welcomed from all levels of the staff. It would make it extremely difficult for marketing to sell a product or service if they don’t know what the customers are saying about our current offerings. It would make it very challenging to lead a team without a focus, and you can not develop a focus unless you listen and communicate.

People improve performance…

Training allows an organization to share knowledge. It doesn’t impact performance directly. Rather, it allows people in the organization to grow and use their understanding to increase their application. This application should be based on the strategy and direction of the organization.

This is where leaders can make the most impact on an organization, initiate change on the thought process of a company. The traditional “business” thought is that people attend training where satisfaction and knowledge is measured initially. Application is measured 60-90 days afterwards. ROI can be shown beyond that point. There is usually something missing in between satisfaction and knowledge measurements and application calculations…the missing item is reinforcement.

Usage is not enough to reinforce the material. The leadership of an organization needs to remind everyone of the goals within their projects. This is a change in thought process. In fact, this transforms training into learning. Training is usually an event or series of events with a finite timeline. Learning, however, is continuous.


Planning for a tomorrow that never arrives makes today much busier, but we learn more through each experience…

Listening to and trusting employees expresses understanding and appreciation…

How many times have you heard, “they” don’t know what we do…or, “they” couldn’t do our job…or even, “they” need to do our job, then “they’ll” understand. Guess who the “they” is…If you said, the leader, you are correct. It is any decision-maker really, but senior leaders get the most of this responsibility.

Many executives have either been there, done that, or feel it is not their place to do the work of their staff. That attitude, like it or not, is negative and will negatively impact the organization. The results can be positive though. Listen to your employees and trust that they know their job. In fact, they possess more knowledge about their roles than you. Communicate your thoughts about the direction of the company, but listen to the experts. Remember, increasing knowledge enhances application. This leads to a more positive return on your investment.

As a leader, stay focused on the vision. The more you become involved in the day-to-day activities of your organization, the further from your vision will your organization move. The reason for this is quite simple. If you engage in the daily operations, there is no one to remind the teams why they are working so hard…why the content of the training is important…and why it is significant to transition knowledge into application.


Remembering is only painful if we choose to forget first…

Leading people encourages peak performance…

If you are a senior leader, you lead the organization and offer assistance to others on how to lead their teams. If you involve yourself in the management of things too oftern, results will be negative. Someone has to keep the focus on a higher strategy. Someone has to ground the organization on what success looks like.

By offering assistance to your organization at various points, and demonstrating how to lead, especially in times of change, you commit to the success of the project and your organization. You also demonstrate that you want continuous ROI, not just one big enough to build your own career.

Driving for results is good if you have a purpose. Negative reinforcement of training by penalizing those that “fail” assessments instead of understanding where gaps lie, will negatively impact results, especially short-term results. Offer opportunities to demonstrate knowledge and application. Offer positive reinforcement through recognition for high levels of application. By leading through change, you can manage your return more thoroughly.

Profits are numbers, not measurements…

The excess of money gained over the amount of money spent. Does that sound like success to you?

Profits may demonstrate good business decisions, such as setting the price of an item higher than your costs. Profits may even allow organizations to invest in additional resources.

Profits can not tell you what the customers think of a product. Profits can not tell you how well co-workers partner. Profits can not tell you if training was worth the labor you invested in it. Profits, especially in the short-term, can not push the company into long-term equilibrium.

Communicating your vision continuously and being open to refining your goals will allow your organization to reach higher levels of success.

New Hire "Bore"ientation

Why do we go through great interviewing processes to select top candidates only to kill them with boredom on their first day of work losing all momentum? Perhaps, my long question doesn't have an exact answer, however, I think it does. By changing your verbage to become a New Hire Celebration and providing new hires with exactly just that, a celebration! Celebrate the fact that you just landed an individual to fit your company's needs.

How do you celebrate and get your message across?

Tell an exciting story to start the day off right. How did you become part of the company? What are you excited about? Why should they be excited? Then, let them tell their story of where they use to be and why they are excited to start with your company. We all know that we need to go over policies and procedures, but why the first day? Do we really entertain the thought they might memorize that lengthy novel of technical jargon?

Build onto their story. Have them create an actual cover page to their story. Give them a chance to be creative and introduce themselves to the rest of the group through their home-made book cover. Have them come up with a creative title, their name, and some of the things they enjoy in life. You can't judge a book by its cover, but you can get to know a lot about a new hire by having them design one.

My last suggestion in this short article is to have new hire's develop a vision. I'm not talking about some miraculous sighting, I am talking about having them come up with a direction on what they would like to achieve within working for your company. Give them your mission statement, values, competencies, initiatives, or whatever you might have, and let them tie their vision into your company's plan. Just as a company is driven by a strong sense of identity and purpose, so are the individual's who work within the organization.

There are many ways to captivate your new hires and celebrate on their first day. Be creative and change your "bore"ientation into a celebration.

Perception and Alignment to Scope of Role

Organizations and team rely on each other to get the job done...or, so it goes...

Sometimes, it just goes...Each level and area of an organization has distinct areas of focus while growing and sustaining a business. The title above contains a link to an example of how each member of a team is important when trying to move from customer satisfaction to customer loyalty. We have many more examples, or think of some of your own, but empower yourself and your staff to understand and use the dashboard and measurement techniques within.

As a Front-line employee, you have the greatest impact on a customer's individual satisfaction. Whether or not he/she is satisfied before they leave, hang up, or sign-off is up to you.

As a Front-line leader, you have the greatest impact on the experience. How you treat your staff and how you look at the statistics of the team helps determine the stability of the experiences your customers may have.

As a manager, you have the greatest impact on building customer relationships. By working with the front-line leaders and employees, you see what influences satisfaction and drives positive experiences. By reinforcing positive behavior and looking for ways to engage and empower your teams, your relationships will grow strong with your customers.

As an executive, you drive customer loyalty. Through vision and insight aligned to an integrated listening post with all parts of your organization, you customer loyalty and commitment to your brand moves toward the positive.