Capabilities, Culture & People Practices
This stage is focused on understanding the capabilities (knowledge, skills and experience) required for the new structure to operate effectively – and critically – whether those capabilities exist in the organisation today.
Guidance
You should focus your efforts on those roles that are substantially changing in the new structure, and seek to:
- understand and define the capabilities that will be required by the role holder
- assess whether those capabilities exist in the current organisation, in order to identify skill gaps, resource shortages and surpluses
- evaluate whether your existing 'people processes' are geared up to address any shortfall in resources
Select start to begin.
It's vital to manage and contain the scope of work at this stage. The business of defining capabilities and assessing skills can become an industry in its own right, rather than a means to a much more pragmatic end. Some principles to keep in mind:
- Focus only on those roles that will be pivotal to future success, and that are substantially changing in the new structure.
- Utilise existing frameworks, such as your Department's competence, professional and PSG frameworks.
- Use existing assessment and performance data to inform your assessment of skill gaps and resource shortages. At this stage you should be seeking to identify major risks to the implementation of the new model, rather than deciding which individuals will go where in the new structure.
- Be careful about initiating work on defining new culture and values. This is a major undertaking (when done well) and for most organisations, structural change implies a rebalancing of behaviours and skills rather than a wholesale change of values or culture. The key 'cultural question' that needs to be addressed at this stage is whether your existing culture is a barrier or an enabler of the new structure and ways of working.
Tools
PSG Core Skills for Senior Civil Service - Professional Skills for Government core skills and descriptors for SCS and Grade 7s.
PSG Core Skills below Grade 7 - Professional Skills for Government core skills and descriptors for staff below Grade 7s.