Competency framework designers on competency framework design: Victoria Pazukha

Introduction

Competency frameworks (or models) are carefully designed for human consumption. This article is part of a series on how people in this discipline go about their design process. What are their problems, approaches and goals?

The final article in the series will be a comparative summary. Ibbaka expects to provide a broad understanding of the discipline for everyone's enjoyment and to inform the design of the Ibbaka Talent Platform.

Read more about our design research here: Design research - How do people approach the design of skill and competency models?

Learn about Ibbaka’s Open Competency Model for Design Thinking

Victoria Pazukha

Victoria Pazukha is principal at Career Mobility Group. Career Mobility Group creates systems, programs and tools to grow talent in a skills-based labour market. They promote labour market development and workforce development and mobility.

Victoria came to competency framework design from a combined background in Neuroscience, Career Development and Human Resources Management. She is interested in advancing people’s aspirations in a workplace and aligning them with organizational goals and business growth. Her intention is to develop a system that enables people development through flexible job movement and career progression within and across organizations, industries, and geographies.

Victoria says that the concept of mobility is getting more and more attention, especially from large enterprises and industry groups that see an increasingly growing demand for new skills on a bigger scale.

In her recent work with the skilled trades ecosystem in BC – industry groups, post-secondary institutions, and industry associations – she has been designing new programs and training delivery models, mostly focused on pre-apprenticeship, flexible apprenticeship, technical and on-the-job training and workforce diversity in the skilled trades.

Most of the frameworks that Victoria has developed have been in the skilled trades ecosystem. She gave an example of a framework for the assessment of proficiency of a shipyard labourer. Her team developed a three-part enhanced assessment: one is a paper based knowledge exam; another is a technical conversation with an assessor (subject matter expert); and another is a practical simulation. They succeeded in designing an effective assessment and certification challenge process leading to the first occupational credential in BC – the Shipyard Labourer Occupational Certificate that is currently used by the BC marine industry employers for evaluating shipyard laborers’ proficiency.

Another example was about building a practical assessment framework for an Industrial Mechanic/Millwright occupation in BC., where her team, which comprised representatives from a credentialing body, Millwright subject matter experts and an assessment company, developed a practical assessment process that took four to six hours instead of the initially estimated five to seven days.

“Let’s say [the purpose of the framework] is an assessment of Millwright’s practical skills. First of all we define what it means to be a ‘competent Millwright’ and agree on that definition. Millwrights work in various sectors (mining, construction, transportation, forestry, pulp and paper) and their skill set is quite diversified and sophisticated. If we want to develop an assessment that helps evaluate a Millwright’s practical skills and streamline the movement of Millwright workers from industry to industry, we need to be clear on what a competent Millwright does regardless of the industry. We spend significant time to define, finalize and approve that definition. Once defined, we identify core competency areas, then specify roles, tasks, skills and behaviours required for expected performance. Once that’s done, we can design an assessment tool or a toolkit.”

The stakeholders that Career Mobility works with often come with a need to do a specific assessment, training or workforce development program or initiative. Building a new competency framework could be part of that need. If that’s the case, the Career Mobility team would form a group of subject matter experts to identify and agree on what they are trying to achieve with the framework. They would outline the purpose of a competency framework, why it is needed, and how it would be used (i.e., for training, assessment, employment, etc.). In many cases, knowledge sharing takes place through facilitated discussions with subject matter experts from a target occupation with experience working in a local, regional, provincial or pan-Canadian labour market.

Victoria’s team often includes transcribers and technical writers so they can present the records back to the subject matter experts and go deeper to ensure that all critical aspects of the competencies for a selected occupation are included. Rather than following a prescribed framework design formula, Victoria focuses on facilitating an open discussion to uncover the breadth and depth of the subject matter experts’ knowledge and often uses design thinking and a variety of facilitation techniques to capture data that are meaningful for the purpose of the framework and to keep everyone engaged.

At this point, the framework is being created, rather than already pre-formed and being slotted into. She described it as "accumulating". While she does have some tools that she uses, she likened her work at this point to creating a classification system. She looks for ways to show that competencies are flexible and continuously evolving to give people more opportunity to develop their competencies in the workplace, and to help employers transform talent from static to dynamic.

Many existing frameworks, Victoria mentioned, are static and require regular updates to reflect fast changing industry, technology and workplace environments. While she would like to bring more movement into this structure, she doesn't see a lot of buy-in from small to medium sized employers to support this effort at the moment. The bigger enterprises recognize the growing need for more agile and responsive competency or skill frameworks. This need, however, does not always translate into coordinated effort across the whole workforce development ecosystem, due to inconsistency in how those who lead workforce development – training providers, employers, policy makers – understand and define skills, capabilities, capacities and competencies.

The challenge Victoria sees is to translate well-designed workforce development strategies into practical tools that employers, big or small, can use to attract, train, retain, and grow their workforces.

Victoria did emphasize that the purpose of a framework is really important, whether it is for a course, assessment, or performance. She wondered if it is possible to design a framework model with applicability and integration across different settings, and whether we need this kind of approach.

"If we have too many approaches, how are we able to align education with employment or measure improvements?"

Concerning the nature of change in competency frameworks, Victoria talked about how occupations have core skills that do not change versus related skills that do. For example, a pilot must be able to manage the aircraft without all the computer systems, but then there is new capacity to manage new devices and information.

When asked, "Is it clear to you when you are done?" Victoria said,

"The current competency framework systems are static and not always reflect the ‘development’ nature of competence. With the dynamic nature of the world of work today, many frameworks require continuous updates. It is not always possible. These are the things that challenge me. I’m trying to figure out how to make it more dynamic, more fluid."

She felt that current technology could go a long way toward that end and mentioned examples of several career and skills mobility platforms that provide more dynamic solutions.

Many of the frameworks that she has worked on were heavy on paperwork. Things like skills assessment checklists can easily be transformed to screens and mobile devices through which the data can be collected, accumulated, translated, and acted upon. That’s why Victoria is always happy to partner with others in this space who also have technology expertise.

Ibbaka Posts on Competency Models and Competency Frameworks

Competency models as learning plans