Skills vs Capability — Have we got this all wrong?
10 ways to improve our understanding on this
Organisations are looking for their teams to be more capable. But who really is responsible for developing capability. Should L&D carry the burden of developing capability in the organisation.
Skills in organisations are constantly growing and developing. Employees are hungry for “new skills” and employees are willing to give them. Who holds responsibility for upskilling in your organisation?
Here are 10 top tips on Skills vs Capability and how we are possibly getting it wrong.
1. What is Capability — Capabilities are those things that we have always had, values, behaviours, interests etc.
2. What are Skills — What we learn through our life that we pick up to help us be better at our work.
So where are we going wrong with skills and capabilities in today’s ever changing world.
3. We focus too much on skills in the workplace when recruiting, promoting or managing talent.
4. Capabilities are seen as “just something that we have”. Companies don’t bring them to the forefront of their people strategy, and they really should.
5. Organisations simply don’t understand the difference between skills and capabilities. Does yours?
6. Measuring capability by seeing how much time we spend at work or number of tasks completely misses the point.
7. Capabilities should be seen as transcendent and skills as more imminent. In a time of constant shocks/changes, the capability conversation becomes more important.
8. Maybe capabilities are not changeable, they are just there. So instead of trying to train them in, we should be drawing them out.
9. Think of skills development being more of a front-line activity and capability development as more of a strategic longer term activity.
10.Capability is not leadership skills.
References –
Deloitte Insights — Skills change nut capabilities endure — https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/6332_From-skills-to-capabilities/6332_Skills-change-capabiliites-endure.pdf
Training Industry.com — Are we training for Skills, competencies or Capabilities? https://trainingindustry.com/blog/strategy-alignment-and-planning/are-we-training-for-skills-competencies-or-capabilities/
Hays — Skills versus competencies — https://social.hays.com/2019/10/04/skills-competencies-whats-the-difference/
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