The speed of change in the world challenges us both as individuals and as organisations. We sometimes have to adapt very quickly to upheavals of various kinds. These changes in the external operating environment often challenge organisations to change their internal practices and processes as well.
Kirsi Piha describes a situation in which an organisation changes more slowly than its environment as an arrhythmia. An organisation’s internal operating cycles can also move at different paces, requiring different rhythms of skills development, explains Merja Soosalu, HR Director at Helsinki Region Environmental Services.
Project objectives
Changes in the operating environment always require us to look at our activities with fresh eyes, and this often also means learning something new. Continuous learning and skills development are not merely tools for individuals’ skills and career development: they are also key factors in, and prerequisites for, organisational vitality and success.
HSY has also identified changes in its operating environment as a key driver of change. The transformation of work is one of the central themes in HSY’s new strategy, alongside how to continue attracting new talent to HSY and how to strengthen retention so that existing employees find their work even more inspiring.
In addition, HSY felt a need to review its learning and skills development practices more holistically and to adopt practices from different parts of the organisation more systematically as it introduced a new digital learning platform.
We joined this work to model the components of skills management and ways of building a capability model as part of the new structures and processes taking shape.
Project progress
Strategic skills development and management are critical for today’s organisations: they ensure that employees’ skills not only meet current needs but also guide the organisation towards its future goals while nurturing its capacity for change.
By linking the organisation’s skills management practices, structures and processes to its strategy, and building ways to embed the resulting practices in everyday work, we make skills development and management purposeful and clear. Clear goals help employees develop their own skills and managers lead skills development, while making the impact of learning easier to assess.
From analysing the current state to tailored solutions through design
A design approach was used to plan the skills development and management model. The starting point was to identify the organisation’s current situation: how do employees experience learning and skills development, and how can we, as an organisation, manage and plan learning and skills development more purposefully while also anticipating future skills needs?
Interviews with employees and management, together with a survey, deepened our understanding of the current state of learning and skills development at HSY. They showed that HSY employees generally have good opportunities to develop their skills and learn new things, and that the organisation’s learning culture was seen as having a positive effect on individual skills development. However, there was a desire for consistent skills management practices. Both employees and management wanted clearer direction and goals for skills development and management.
Based on the current-state assessment, we defined design principles that guided development throughout the project. A participatory design approach was used, delivered through a series of workshops and consultancy for the management team, managers and employees.
The co-creation approach enabled broad involvement of staff working in different roles and organisational units. Through participatory co-design methods, we sought to build a shared understanding of the importance of skills development from the perspectives of both individual employees and organisational units, and to secure broad commitment from everyone affected by the development measures.
Identifying strategic capabilities
Work with the management team began by identifying and defining strategic capabilities. Drawing on HSY’s strategy, we considered what skills HSY needs to achieve the goals set out in the strategy. Strategic capabilities are an organisation’s core areas of competence, encompassing skills, knowledge and technologies. Identifying them helps an organisation determine which skills are critical to its success now and in the future. Deliberately developing these capabilities translates strategy work into practice.
In a workshop for managers, strategic capabilities were assessed from the perspectives of skills management and line management. In a workshop for employees, we also identified different ways of learning and developing skills at HSY in line with the 70–20–10 model.
Building the capability model and piloting skills discussions
Building organisational capabilities aims to develop the organisation’s skills and expertise so that it can succeed and achieve its goals. A capability model acts as a kind of map, guiding the organisation on which capabilities it needs and how to develop them. It helps the organisation plan and steer this development process.
An iterative, experimental approach to development is part of design. As part of the project, we designed a pilot to support the development of HSY’s capability model. We tested team-level skills discussions that also explored skills in relation to units’ strategic goals and future skills needs.
The discussions produced good results and were seen as a valuable addition from a skills management perspective as well.
Building capabilities is an essential part of organisational success, helping improve efficiency and productivity while ensuring organisational flexibility and capacity for change in a changing operating environment.
In conclusion
The journey towards a culture of continuous learning, including defining the capabilities required, calls for determination and a systematic approach. The aim of co-design was to foster participants’ commitment and a shared understanding of the importance of skills development for both individual and organisational success. Involving employees in planning learning and skills development also promoted collaborative learning and cooperation across HSY’s organisational boundaries.
The way HSY set out to build a model that meets its organisational needs demonstrates how skills development can be made more purposeful and supportive of strategy implementation. This kind of systematic, continuous development creates a strong foundation for organisational success, renewal and the ability to respond to future challenges. Building capabilities requires perseverance and, to succeed, a whole range of skills, processes and structures.
We would like to warmly thank the whole HSY organisation, and particularly Merja Soosalu and Heidi Tähtinen, for their trust and excellent collaboration, and for the lessons we were able to gather and develop together.
Would you like to hear more about us and our work?
Kuulas & Co Oy. Kuulas & Co is a design agency and coaching company specialising in organisational development. We help our clients align strategic skills needs with employees’ career and learning aspirations. At the same time, we coach employees to become insightful developers of their own work and workplace communities.
Let’s shape the future of work and learn together!