SkillBuild: Encouraging Mastery in the Workplace

A study by McKinsey in 2021 identified what it referred to as ‘The Great Attrition’ with a record number of employees looking to leave their jobs.  When they revisited the study last year they found that there were not many changes since their original research despite the fact that the economy and the world had changed. 

One of the questions raised by McKinsey is whether organisations offer their employees career paths and development opportunities. By encouraging employees to seek to improve themselves through acquiring knowledge and developing their skills, businesses can not only improve individual performance but can also increase their motivation, enhance job satisfaction (with 94% of employees saying they would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career development) and have a direct impact on performance and profitability.   

Cosgrove & Drew Engineering are an example of a company who have embraced the need to develop skills in the workplace as Luke Drew who founded the business with his friend, Zac Cosgrove explains. “We have always encouraged continuous improvement on both a personal and organisational level, which we see as one of the biggest drivers for our growth to date. In 2022 we worked with QuoLux™ to modify and adapt their SkillBuild Framework to create a bespoke online system for our business which allows all our employees to see their career and development opportunities within Cosgrove & Drew, map out their future and plan their potential career progression.  We mapped out seven different levels across the business from apprentices (Level 1), skilled workers (Level 2 / 2T), team leaders (Level 3), managers (Level 5), senior managers (Level 6) through to the senior leadership team at Level 7.” 

“We recognised that there is a lot of difference between someone who has just started in a role, say as a manager, compared to someone who has been in that role for some time. We therefore created four different ‘bands’ for each level (e.g. Level 1 - Band 1, Level 1 - Band 2, Level 1 - Band 3, Level 1 - Band 4) and identified the skills needed to demonstrate progression through each of the different levels. We looked at the technical skills as well as the personal development / team-working / leadership skills required at each band, allowing individuals to see a possible career path from starting out as an apprentice (Level 1 – Band 1) through to a becoming a member of our Senior Leadership Team at Level 7.” 

“Our SkillBuild framework is an interactive system through which team members can upload evidence of their skills, show how they are progressing and working towards the next step in their career. The framework is then used during 1-2-1 meetings and our regular appraisals to discuss training and development needs, and career progression opportunities as well as allowing managers and supervisors to share feedback and give recognition.” 

If you’d like to download our case study on Cosgrove & Drew Engineering, 'Values-led leadership & Business Growth', click below.  

To learn more about our SkillBuild framework and how it could help your organisation, get in touch with Stewart Barnes here.