How to Build a Capability Framework with Software

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We’ve noticed that capabilities create a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation for a lot of organisations. Do you start with a framework to add capabilities to, or do you start with capabilities and then assign them to a capability framework? A lot of organisations have one, but not the other. And on the rare occasion when they have both, all their information is stored in one behemoth of a spreadsheet.

What if you could just use software to streamline the process of building a capability framework? Capabilities and capability development are the building blocks of any effective L&D strategy, but it’s easy to fail hard and fast if you have no way of implementing a capability-led strategy.

In this guide we’ll talk about how you can use software to build a capability framework complete with capabilities in order to drive organisational improvement.

The problem with using spreadsheets for capability frameworks

We get it: Spreadsheets are practical, accessible, and everyone is already using them. It’s easy to stick with what’s familiar, but if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Using spreadsheets for managing capability frameworks can lead to:

• Lack of scalability for large organisations
• Difficulty managing and maintaining spreadsheets
• Limited collaboration and sharing capabilities
• Limited options for tracking, reporting, and analysing data.

Lack of scalability

Let’s be real here: spreadsheets are useful on a small scale, but they just don’t cut it once you start growing beyond a certain size. Small businesses generally have a smaller dataset to deal with because of the size of their operations and workforce. But once that small business starts to scale, its spreadsheets struggle to scale with it because it’s not equipped to deal with vast swathes of data at once.

In 2020, Public Health England lost data on almost 16,000 coronavirus cases, all because they were using an outdated format of Excel that could only handle a certain amount of data. Now imagine how a large organisation with over 100,000 employees would handle L&D data, especially if it’s tracking capability development over multiple years. Eventually, you might start losing data (not to mention how slow the spreadsheet would be trying to load it all), creating an incomplete picture for talent development, workforce planning, or even resourcing.

Not only will you be unable to track employee progress (meaning employees are likely learning the wrong things) but you won’t have a workforce equipped to adapt to business risks or industry changes. That means a hit to employee engagement, your competitive advantage, and your bottom line.

Maintenance burden

The formulas in your spreadsheet might be automated, but actually entering data in is all manual. That makes keeping it up-to-date and error-free a continuous effort for whoever’s in charge of it. Not only can one small instance of human error compromise the integrity of your capability framework and distort learning and performance trends, but it’s a huge manual effort that takes time away from more complex tasks and strategic HR activities.

It’s also just risky to put the burden of maintaining a spreadsheet on one individual, because if that employee ever wants to move on, they’ll be taking that crucial organisational knowledge with them.

Limited collaboration opportunities

The only way to collaborate on a spreadsheet is to have multiple people in the spreadsheet itself, accessing, reading, and editing it simultaneously. The problem is that this can lead to version control issues and data inconsistencies.

Plus, spreadsheets are often stored locally or on shared drives, which restricts people’s access (and continues to perpetuate version control issues). Not only does that limit L&D teams from designing effective capability frameworks, but this can also create security issues around spreadsheets that aren’t securely stored or are vulnerable to unauthorised access.

Limited analysis and reporting

Yes, spreadsheets offer basic analytical tools, but they lack the advanced capability needed to perform in-depth analyses and reporting on capabilities and workforce development. It also really hinders HR’s ability to generate dynamic, real-time reports, because data input is manual and static.

And because data is isolated and siloed, it’s harder to ensure that the data pulled is accurate, identify business needs and development opportunities, or integrate data with other HR processes and systems like learning management systems (LMS) or human resource information systems (HRIS).

What is the right software to build capability frameworks?

We’ve seen a lot of people using spreadsheets simply because they didn’t have the technology required to support their people data the way they need it to. While HR and L&D tools are useful here, sometimes they don’t have the functionality to cover the performance management conversation as well. It’s great if you can find multiple systems that can integrate with each other to cover all your bases, but finding seamless integration that doesn’t cost a bomb is near-impossible.

A performance learning management system (PLMS) can solve that issue, because it tackles the issues of capability building and performance management in one system. The idea is to guide leaders and learners through the process of discovering, assigning, and developing capabilities in order to create learning that drives performance, and performance that informs learning opportunities.

How to build a capability framework with the right software

Building a capability framework can be streamlined completely with software. Building a capability framework this way involves:

1. Defining objectives and scope
2. Gathering data
3. Defining capabilities
4. Implementing the framework
5. Monitoring the framework

Step 1: Define objectives and scope

This step is pretty straightforward: Define what you want to achieve with your capability framework. Maybe you want it to help improve employee performance, plan future growth, identify skill gaps, or all of the above. This also includes the scope of your framework—i.e., whether the framework covers the whole organisation, specific departments, or specific roles. Either way, you need to know what you plan to get out of your capability framework from the very start so that you get the most out of it.

Step 2: Gather data and input

Regardless of the software solution you choose for your business, it won’t be able to create a comprehensive capability framework without some information about your organisation and job roles first. The data you need to gather for this step will again depend on whatever goals you set for yourself in the first step (i.e. whether the capability framework is going to be organisation-wide or focus on a specific team).

Start by gathering existing job descriptions and role profiles within your organisation. They’ll have detailed information about the responsibilities of different positions, which you can use to define and assign relevant capabilities (which we’ll get into more below). Just remember to get input from key stakeholders such as managers, team leaders, and employees to ensure that capabilities and job descriptions align with business goals.

Step 3: Define capabilities

If you already have defined capabilities assigned to each job role, great. If not, a PLMS can do that for you with AI. Manually defining capabilities can be hard work because of the sheer number of positions across your organisation, so you may want to take that into account when you choose your software. Or you can always check out our extensive library of 600+ capabilities to get started.

Regardless of whether you had your own capabilities or not, use your software to organise your capabilities into categories. A PLMS is particularly suited to creating a well-structured visual framework that draws the relationships between different capabilities and their relevance to specific roles and business functions. Once it organises your capabilities into a combination of categories and subcategories, you’ll be able to see top-level capabilities as well as those specific to roles and functions.

• Top-level categories include focus capabilities for the business, like performance management or strategic management.
• Subcategories can be used to break down top-level categories at a deeper level, i.e. by job function. Group capabilities based on technical requirements of a field, department or function, like product management or marketing.
• Specific capabilities are capabilities grouped by specific job roles in each function.

Step 4: Implement the framework

Don’t just implement the capability framework and expect your issues to be solved overnight. You need to communicate the framework to the whole organisation. Not only do you need to communicate how to use the framework to managers and business leaders, but you also need to communicate its purpose to employees (this is how you get buy-in and increase employee engagement with development plans).

Implementing the framework needs to happen at all levels of the business to be truly strategic. That means it should integrate with:

• Recruitment. Capabilities in the framework should be linked to job descriptions and make it easier to assess and select talent based on their capabilities.
• Performance management. Capabilities (and their associated competency levels) should be used in performance reviews to evaluate employees based on their assigned capabilities and inform goal-setting for the future.
• Succession planning. The framework can assess and identify potential leaders and high-potential employees (and assign capabilities for development so selected individuals can prepare for career advancement).
• Learning and development. Training should be linked to capabilities in the framework so employees develop the capabilities that are most important to business strategy.

That last point is maybe the most important because learning that doesn’t improve performance (and vice versa) is a waste of time, money, and resources. But software removes that waste from the equation entirely; it automatically maps capabilities to learning content within the system, so you can be sure that your L&D initiatives are actually driving the improvement you need for organisational success.

Step 5: Monitor the framework

Building a capability framework isn’t a set-and-forget kind of task. Schedule regular reviews of the capability framework to determine whether it’s up-to-date with your current business goals—and don’t forget to consider your short-term and long-term goals as well, rather than just the here and now.

Your software should be able to determine how well the capability framework is working based on performance improvement and ROI in training. A PLMS in particular automates performance evaluations so you can see how employee performance has improved in real-time (and gain any insights on trends or learning efficacy while you’re at it). If performance isn’t improving and capabilities aren’t being mastered, then it’s a sign you need to revisit the learning content provided.

And don’t forget to update the framework alongside your business, either. Maybe certain job roles or business functions no longer exist—or maybe new ones exist where they didn’t before. Either way, a PLMS can use its AI function to update the capability framework accordingly.

The benefits of using software to automate capability frameworks

You probably guessed we’re not huge supporters of spreadsheets. But if even the UK government has struggled to find a better way of managing people data, what’s the solution?

We’re big believers in using the right software to design and manage your capability framework, from identifying core capabilities to assigning and measuring training and development. Using software to automate a capability framework:

• Streamlines data management, updates, and accuracy
• Enables real-time collaboration and sharing among stakeholders.
• Provides advanced analytics for decision-making and growth.

Streamlined data management

The vast amount of data involved makes managing a capability framework complex, especially in larger organisations. After all, a larger talent pool means more professional development plans, more career planning, and more areas that need syncing with strategic priorities. In other words: More room for error.

With the right software, you can collate all the data from various spreadsheets—whether that’s data on key capabilities, employee performance reviews, or relevant learning resources—and store it in one centralised location. Not only does that mean you have one source of truth (eliminating version control and ownership issues), but it will all be easily accessible to managers and human resources alike, allowing them to better facilitate L&D initiatives.

And we’d be remiss not to mention how the right software (which we’ll get into later) can integrate with other HR tech systems to automate data flow between platforms. For facilitators, this means software that creates the most up-to-date snapshot of organisational capability from relevant sources. For learners, this means fostering a supportive environment for continuous learning by automating capability assessments and feedback.

Enhanced collaboration

Let’s say your data is streamlined and automated across workflows, and is integrated with other critical HR tools. It’s makes it easier for managers and employees to collaborate on capability development plans and performance management to ensure that learners are receiving tailored training aligned with their job roles and desired outcomes.

Say an employee completes a piece of learning content, which gets automatically updated in your capability management software. That employee’s manager can see real-time updates about their progress, which they can provide feedback on. Maybe the employee doesn’t adopt new behaviours after completing the training (something that is more likely to happen when desired behaviours aren’t defined or mapped to specific content). That wouldn’t be ideal, because incremental changes in employee behaviour are what really drive business transformation and organisational success. But if managers are able to track progress, they can use their software to review performance and collaborate with employees to adjust their development plans accordingly.

As an example, think how much easier it is to make effective workforce decisions when you can easily search and filter specific data points like individual capability or relevant skills, or even analyse organisational capability trends.

Facilitates analysis and growth

Automated data analysis including workforce planning analytics makes it easier to view, visualise, and filter specific data points, making it easier to see data trends and patterns over time (and build a business case for stakeholders, business leaders, and employees alike). This makes business-critical activities like workforce planning and scenario planning much easier, because organisations can use historical data to forecast changes and challenges in the business environment and prepare accordingly.

Understanding the gaps in your capability framework helps to direct targeted learning and development, as well as design specific job descriptions that attract the right talent for the right jobs. And we know that 53% of Gen Z workers want to receive development, so providing data-backed training will improve talent retention, on top of better leadership development, succession planning, and internal mobility.

Key takeaways

Building a capability framework with spreadsheets is a time-consuming and resource-heavy endeavour—and it’s not even that effective in the long run, especially as your business scales. Software, on the other hand, uses AI to assist HR in centralising data points across learning, performance, and business goals in order to create an effective capability framework that drives desired outcomes.

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