EMPOWERMENT SKILLS, The Future of work.

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Introduction to empowerment in the workplace.

Empowerment skills enable people to happy in the workplace performing their job role. Regardless of job and credentials or how you think you are currently positioned in the workplace or what job or industry you may be considering to begin work, this learning is for YOU!

Empowerment skills provide a first time opportunity to understand what is expected in performing any job role and enable making informed decisions relating to what job and industry could be available. So what does this mean?

individuals can open up employment choices and businesses can increase their options to select people for a job role who commit to the company’s transparent rules that are exposed at recruitment.

Any high performance expectations must been founded on the acceptance of transparent set og rules. Just like in sport high performance teams play to the rules of the game. A good analogy is the game of golf. Global players commit to the rules and that commitment has stood the test of time.

Systems for Empowerment required holistic design

We started our change processes by designing our new empowerment skills and matrix to provide an alternative workplace language. We identified that status quo needed to be enabled, to have conversations that facilitated collboration between people, young and old who had a “bottom up” performance skill mindset to carry us forward through the 21st century.

The workplace and workforces can benefit from having new rules and language just like the game of golf.

Australia like other nations is at a crossroad. Cost of living pressures, skills shortages and dwindling productivity are amongst other contributing causes that are rapidly reducing business and community confidence.

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There is an expectation that governments should invest in strategies that will take away the pain and “reset our future.” The issue is that apart from investing vast amounts of money without any evidence of outcomes there is no vision for the future.

We are at the point in time where governments need to look more broadly at the contributing factors (currently viewed in their own silos) to be able to design a 21^st Century people-centric way forward.

Looking at all contributing factors is how we can collaborate to reimagine 20^th Century status quo (non- creative thinking) to a new way that is transparent and transformational.

People need hope based on trust and the opportunity to contribute to the improvement of their family, community, and work situations to be engaged and empowered to be able to add value to our future.

The idea that people will conform to what politicians promote is being challenged.

New knowledge for empowerment

We all need to respect the fact that people are more knowledgeable than ever before. Knowledge is not a commodity anymore – it is available on ay internet device. It may not surprise people that the largest training provider in the world is YouTube.

The amount of research evidence that suppoorts the need to change is staggering yet there is sickening amount of money still being invested to in status quo educational and training systems and business improvement strategies that have not shown they work for the 21st century.

 

The Time is Up – Normal Versus Empowerment. 

The content is designed to provide knowledge about contributing factors and how they interact or importantly show how the term “reform” applied in just one area corrupts the opportunity to reimagining how we can all contribute towards delivering harmony and productivity by nurturing the development of a people centric workforce performance outcome.

The beneficiaries of this approach are:

• Families
• Communities
• Schools and University students
• Organisations including small businesses.
• Workforces and workers

There are five major contributors that need to be holistically reimagined to bring the Australian societies and workplaces into the twenty first Century. They are Schools and Universities, Vocational Education and Training (VET), Workplaces, Business Management and Communities.

1. SCHOOLS

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenged the way we educate our children, championing a radical rethink of how our school systems cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. Ken talks about people and how we have different types of intelligence (talent) including children. One is no more important than another.

However, in school, education is about testing people to see if students were suitable for university. Ken gave the example of Sir Paul McCartney who was not recognised for his musical talents in his music class at school. George Harrison had the same experience. At school, their musical talents were not recognised. Why?

2. VET

The Australian (VET) Systems is best characterised as “TAFE” because it has traditionally been known by most people as another type of school run by the government. The VET systems including TAFE are currently under review and reform because VET is not delivering expectations. The national VET system is based on industry endorsed competency standards making up nationally recognised Qualifications. Why?

3. WORKPLACES

In the past three years, New South Wales, Western Australia, Tasmania, and Queensland have all introduced codes of practice to address psychosocial hazards at work. These policies speak to a growing awareness that many workplaces in the region are harmful to the psychological health of their employees. Why?

4. COMMUNITIES

Schools are fundamental in communities and play a major role in supporting children starting with pre school and then the different levels of school. Parents, family members and support people are heavily invested in schools however they are also invested and impacted through good and bad workplace and business management practices where the consequences of psychosocial hazards in the workplace play out. Why?

5. BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

Like schools and Universities business management models have evolved from 19th Century business systems. Human Resource Management (HRM) has been providing people support in terms of an administration support role to the operational side of a business. For example, HRM could say they pick up the pieces after managers using 19th Century management practices created workforce havoc.

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So, what does this mean in the 21st Century? There is a rapid rise of companies putting the spotlight on people and skills. Companies that are winning are investing in people first. Why?

After you have completed this learning you will relate to why these new skills are called empowerment skills.

Everyone who completes this short course will learn:
• about the empowerment skills for the future of work and.
• how they can develop your workplace confidence and achievement.
• how to be happy and empowered performing a job role.

The story of behind our invention

Why:

Prior to the decision to develop our “alternative” there had been ongoing effort to improve traditional Government and industry Vocational Education and Training (VET) models. People were told what to what to remember, they were not empowered to use their creativity.

Fast forward to 2022. The Federal Government is investing $12 Billion in free TAFE placements (over five years) without any evidence that the expenditure will make any difference to the skills shortage problem.

Please Note that the VET system including poor performing Registered Training Organisations (RTO’s) is currently going through a $420 million reform to address the poor quality of training outcomes provided by the system over the past 15-20 years.

Here in lies the problem whereby traditional systems and approaches need to be improved however they cannot produce the change required because they are not connected to workplaces.

 

We invented a model to achieve empowerment in the workplace. 

Generally speaking, an invention is a new product or process that solves a technical problem. 

This is different from a discovery or opportunities, that result from having the invention.

It is the consequences that result from our invention that needs to be respected. Without our invention the ongoing opportunities to learn, develop and refine our processes would not be possible.

We are proud of our invention defined by our international patents (2012 and 2013). We are equally proud of the outcomes of our discoveries and the opportunities that we have exploited thus far, in particular our Integrated Safety, Quality, and Qualification (ISQ2)Framework, MYSKILLSmanager.

The Co-founders have developed a totally different approach to deal with the complex problems associated with improving skills utilisation within and across workforces. Critical to increasing national productivity gains is the requirement to effect fundamental change to the current systems and supporting programs.

In recent years there has been a concentrated effort to improve traditional Government and industry support models for the purpose of driving the change required to make a difference.

Here in lies the problem whereby traditional systems and approaches need to be improved however they cannot provide the changes required because they are not driven by employers.

A recent post by highly respected training systems specialist, Dr Philip Rutherford. The biggest problem is finding training that provides the skills employers need.

Employers can always teach new entrants or current employees, but they are encouraged not to do so by the belief that the current VET system will provide them. Clearly it will not. So, it is up to employers now.

The workplace is where people make mistakes and then learn how to correct them. With our new systems and processes people can adjust their learning and performance to match company performance skills expectations creating a win, win, win for workers, companies, and our country.

We commited to developing a new integrated digital processes and tools that solved the problem of:

1. Life learning: No means that allowed any individual or workforces to take full advantage of the skills they have acquired during their life-long learning. Research supports more than 80% of learning takes place in the workplace.

 

1. Stalled leadership: No method to empower managers, to develop skills to lead the design and communication of specific job expectations linked to performance skills development. All people deserve the right know what management expect. The days of sink or swim are over. People walk instead.

 

1. Marketing personal capabilities: Workers not having the means to self-manage and market their skills acquisition, job, and workplace performance skills development. This problem was further accentuated if a person moved from one place of employment to another.

 

1. Strangling confidence: Governments and other key industry leaders had been trying to reform the Vocational Education and Training (VET) system to enable the delivery of job competent people, without any success. Currently, the Federal Government is investing $12 Billion in free TAFE placements (over five years) without any evidence that the expenditure will make any difference to the huge skills shortage problem.

• • Please Note: that the VET system including poor performing RTO’s is currently going through a $420 million reform to address the poor quality of training outcomes provided by the system over the past 15/20 years.

 

1. Misguided beliefs: Workplace learning has not been able to be valued in a similar way to formal learning programs (Qualifications). The concept of people (students) having to go to “Tech” to gain a qualification to start their work career needs to be challenged.

 

1. Productivity is not automatic: Not being able to recognise and measure learning and personal performance skills in a specific workplace context has multiple limiting consequences in relation to developing new approaches to workforce development programs that are sustainable and continuously improve productivity
   • Without a workplace context “students” enrolled in formal learning programs cannot challenge the relevance of their program. It is like trying to “teach fish how to climb trees”.

The invention has led to the breakthrough (discovery):

2014 Discoveries

• A new verifiable way to enable the alignment of the skills developed in the workplace to be equivalent to formal qualifications, enabling 100% of the workplace skills to be captured and valued.

 

• A method for all learning events to be documented using a universal technique that allows users to quickly recognise, value and validate the outcomes.

 

• The means to use digital technology to capture multiple third-party/peer validation transactions providing “truth of work” not previously possible.

 

• The means to compare quality validated skills available with the skills needed for a particular job or task.

 

• A simple method to match the skills resulting from training with the skills wanted by individual workforces and communities for specific outcomes.

 

• Build capacity within communities and increase productivity within workforces by learning event documentation sharing, mentoring and succession planning strategies.

2015 Discoveries

• Our company researched and developed alternative means to address construction site Work Health and Safety (WHS) compliance legislation. The design principles focussed on practical methods to engage and empower workers to keep themselves safe and others safe in the workplace.
• Using mobile devices was a fundamental progression to achieve a paperless environment. Our knowledge and implementation of our skills performance processes resulting from workplace learning was applied in the context of designing an alternative means of achieving and constantly improving WHS performance.

 

• A critical component of our WHS alternative was the creation of our learning for performance algorithm.  The algorithm defines the step-by-step process to engage and empower workers and therefore build a sustainable performance and WHS culture. The algorithm can work with multiple starting points making it adaptable for different size businesses and workforces.

 

• • Creating our algorithm resulted in the discovery and development of our Performance Based Recruitment Processes. In a check list, tick the box world who would have considered Improving WHS performance would start at recruitment.

2019 Discoveries

• Extensive research, development and testing began to improve the Skills Ecosystem functionality for the residential home construction industry.
• Interrogated and confirmed Industry Quality 4.0 Principles and Standards for the purpose of adding this futuristic product and service to our offerings for our clients.

 

• We applied truth of work principles and tested functionality and compatibility to our data management for the purpose of demonstrating digital auditing process for future quality processes including credentialling.

2022 Discoveries

• Developed our mechanisms and processes to enable businesses to offer workplace qualifications to their existing employees and new recruits.
• Explored the connections between Corporate Intellectual Property (IP) and Intangible Assets as the means to add commercial values and competitive advantages to any size business.

2010 – 2023 – Our journey

In the early days our efforts involved constant concept testing, involving both processes and digital mechanisms. From the beginning we knew that we had to build our technology from the ground up to enable our alternative to traditional job and skills pathways to be realised.

A major focus was to establish new resources and connections that would allow us to service any size businesses in any industry. We considered this functionality to be vital in providing a universal alternative to current job and skills pathways.

Our goal was to offer all people and workplaces the opportunity to be engaged and empowered people who could self-manage personal learning and performance. And if required manage operational performance within companies to deliver quality products and services.

We have more than 600 registered industry “test” and specific business workspaces within our cloud framework. People may ask why so many. Our answer is we needed evidence (proof) that our alternative could be delivered when scaled.

We are currently looking to engage accredited partners to work with businesses to implement our “Alternative”.

Market testing over a 10-year period included businesses in the following industries:

A key feature of our efforts was inventing a new way of recognising, measuring and communicating skills utilised in the workplace. The skills had to be those that had been previously hidden when performing a job role. And that enabled the capture of life learning for individuals and the opportunity fro organisations to design jobs based on transparent and measurable performance skills.

The reason for the hiddden skills was the focus on externally acquired qualifications. Deeming capability and competence based on external qualifications is the fundamental reason why the wellbeing of workers and workforce productivity is sliding rapidly.

Empowerment skills can used to design jobs and to measure to the  effectiveness of learning and skill utilisation. Our empowerment skill matrix is linked to our digital framework can provide a skill rating and equivelent qualification level for any combinations of skills packaged for a specific purpose.

The skills needed for a job are packaged within JOBcodes. The process used to select the skills is Job- coding.

The same measuremnet processess are used for personal performance and skill recognition where the skills and levels are selected by any person to show their learning progress or sustainable performance in the workplace.

JOBcodes and SKILLcodes can be matched to show if they meet expectations or the degree of difference.

SKILLcodes

Workers are engaged and empowered by having their own personal SKILLcode. Individuals track and value all of their learning for performance skills capability by using the same tools and matrix used by employers to establish Work Level Standards (WLS’s) for the organisation.

It is their own personal life learning framework that can be transferred to other industry sector or importantly moved vertical within the pay scales of their organisation.

Evidence is easily incorporated using the SKILLcode tools to validate every incremental achievement.

The future of work is now!

The invention and enhancements are more relevant today.

In 2023 We have expanded and further developed our 2012 invention to now enable companies to implement Industry 4.0 Quality systems, Workplace Qualifications and associated programs to engage and empower workers and workforces.

A key feature of our invention is to engage and empower workers to self-manage their team and workers workplace safety performed under the umbrella of Quality Products and Services.

Some of the current issues:

• Skills shortages
• National training system reforms
• Government interference

are distractions, identifying problems without offering practical ideas about how to fix the problems.

The time is up for the so-called experts and bureaucrats.

It is now up to the EMPLOYERS and their WORKERS.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that our company’s invention was, as with many inventions ahead of its time. As a consequence, we have been working tirelessly to develop and improve our people@work software and our business services and support programs. We know businesses are ready to embrace new opportunities that make a real difference to their future sustainability and prosperity.

The questions are where to start?

Possibly the biggest problem facing businesses and organisations is Skill Shortages.

We can help any size company offer workplace qualifications to attract and retain workers.

• The first step in the process is to help businesses establish their own workplace learning academy.
• Our invention and new processes enable workers to collect and validate evidence of their incremental learning acquired from performing their job role.
• A point to remember is a worker is paid to learn by their employer, a fact that has been happening for ever without the recognition.

With more than 90% of learning already taking place in the workplace combined with rapidly changing digital technology, now is the time to change our behaviours and approaches to Job,work and skills recognition