Chasing the Competency Gap

What happens when people don't have the skills to do their jobs? In the old century, they would probably be fired, and new talent would take over. Now, the new talent isn't any more likely to do a better job than the old hand. It seems that shifting organizational strategies and new technology have combined to create a permanent competency gap. Workers are constantly trying to catch up but haven't been able to attain all the necessary skills. Even new graduates are struggling to master the "working world" skills that aren't being taught in academia. The hiring organization has to pick up the slack, or fail in its mission. That situation has been status quo for a while, but things are about to get much worse.

The American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) just released their new "Bridging the Competency Gap" white paper, and it painted a grim picture. The report says that, in the next few years, the Baby Boom generation will begin to exit the workforce in large numbers, and over a quarter of all organizations in America haven't prepared for the loss in workers. Two-thirds of all employers have no strategy to keep these late-career employees, who are usually the keepers of institutional knowledge. Half of the hiring organizations must train new hires before putting them to work, especially in leadership and basic business skills.

So if we have to train people, how can we train the greatest number of people in the least amount of time for the least cost? You guessed it: e-learning to the rescue! Once created, courses can be used over and over for new hires and poor performers alike. A talent assessment will help determine where the greatest training needs are, and good metrics will show where the improvements are. Coupled with follow-up live training and mentoring programs, organizations can push productivity and quality out of the red and back into the green.

E-learning is especially crucial to government agencies. It's famously difficult to fire government workers, therefore they must be trained, because they get paid regardless of their value. Otherwise the cube farm will be full of weeds, sucking up valuable resources while providing no benefits.

Training in a Crisis

We produced a crisis communications e-learning course for a customer last fall, and their approach was very interesting. According to their policy, in a crisis, every single communicator is responsible for managing communications in a crisis. If the usual responder isn't available, the nearest communicator is called into action. I love this approach, and I think it should be applied more often to core duties, especially in a large organization. The communicators I spoke to seemed proud to serve and willing to be called upon.

For any organization, employees should know what to do in a crisis. Whether it's a building fire, stolen property, website hack or some other unfortunate incident, there should be a policy and procedures document governing employee actions. Most of the time the organization stops there. The employee gets a copy of the document, maybe reads it, maybe understands it, then signs a piece of paper. Is this good enough, considering you may be asking that person to step into a very demanding role?

Use the policy document to serve as the basis for a crisis course. Depending on the size and complexity of the organization, there may be a whole curriculum covering communication, management, finding alternate worksites, first aid, conflict resolution, even self-defense. While many of these topics would benefit from a seminar or a simulation, they can all start with an e-learning course. That first course in the curriculum can give an overview of the subject, add in some vocabulary and procedures, and form a common basis of understanding among the employees. Add in some self-check questions and scenarios, and you've really got something. E-learning is always available, so include it with your onboarding materials for new employees, and be sure to announce course updates.

As follow-up, update the course when the policy document is updated. Oh, yeah, any risk management professional will tell you to review your emergency policies and procedures regularly, so schedule that.