Land Admin SystemsSummary
Draft for Ken's approval
In a regional Lands Office, staff pick up skills informally, by watching others on the job. Skill levels are low and processing errors occur. When staff leave, their skills go with them, and new hires arrive with few skills. Competency spirals downward. Management used Strategy Dynamics to find a way to raise skills and sustain them. It had to do so without a significant rise in salary costs and without finding an aid provider.
Nine performance improvement objectives were set, with graphs of performance over time. The schematic of the core structure shows a staffing pipeline of junior and senior staff, with skill levels and salaries. It was extended to include eight brainstormed improvement proposals and how they affect supply servicing demand. A Strategy Dynamics model tested each proposal for effectiveness and sustainability.
The improvement strategy has four parts. Hire trainees and train them formally. Run regular short in-house up skilling. Give junior staff formal training before they advance to senior. Have senior staff formally mentor juniors.
Key points
- The Strategy Dynamics approach can be applied to staff development and skills improvement, in this case with several improvement objectives.
- Building blocks for staff development can stand alone, or link through feedback loops to the demand and supply structures used in earlier examples.
- Improvement proposals were tested for effectiveness and sustainability, and an improvement strategy was chosen that includes ways to reduce risk.
- The strategy combines formally trained trainees, regular in-house up skilling, formal training before promotion to senior, and senior staff mentoring juniors.
- The model can be used regularly as a living business model, during and after implementation, to compare actual progress with model targets.