An applied business model for developing workforce
Today, in this age of experience economy, we witness the rapid pace of new advances in technology, business disruptions and innovations across the globe. Organisations are racing to transform their business, upskill or reskill their workforce to drive sustainable innovation. Business transformation and workforce development are inextricably linked. For most organisations, their business model change pivot around digital transformation, automation, and building innovation capabilities. What truly supports a sustainable business transformation is that organisations need to reinvent how they develop those capabilities, in particular the workforce.
One strategy I propose is to adopt a business model canvas that is contextualised to workforce development. In other words, by continuously improving how organisations can create, deliver and capture real value for developing their workforce.
Workforce Development Canvas
Exhibit 1- depicts a contextualised workforce development model with three major sections: feasibility, viability and desirability components.
How does it work?
In the workforce development canvas, there are three sections, namely feasibility, viability desirability. The sequence of working starts with identifying the building blocks in the desirability section, followed by feasibility and viability sections. Using this workforce development canvas, you can gather all the requirements to produce a single visual model for implementing all three sections iteratively. This will significantly enable all stakeholders to achieve the value proposition of the chosen workforce development.
Desirability
This set of building blocks drive the value proposition of what would be desirable for a successful workforce intervention strategy. The desirability risk that the target audience is too small, that too few takers would want the value proposition and that it would not create traction and achieve the intended intervention goals.
· User Relationships — What are the existing organisational structure concerning workforce development? What kinds of relationships are forged in engaging the workforce to upskill or reskill? What can HR and stakeholders leverage to enhance the target audience’s adoption of learning intervention?
· User Segments — Which group of the workforce or functional work teams would be the target audience for the intervention? And at which level or career stage in the organisation?
· Channels — What would be the medium or platform to deliver the workforce development intervention? Some channel examples are social media, blogs, interactive learning packages, collaboration tools and blended workshops can be used to deliver workforce capabilities development.
· Value Propositions — This segment is a collection of products and services used to align values (Value Map) and the needs of the target audience (User Segment) for a workforce development intervention.
Value Proposition Canvas
Exhibit 2 depicts an example of a value proposition canvas. It is a great tool to gather information on how the target audience would make decisions on the gains, pain points, and what exactly are their needs. Consequently, by having a deep understanding of those needs, it is possible to design the value proposition more effectively. Some helpful questions to ask when defining the workforce development products and services are: What is the problem that I am trying to solve? What is the underlying motivation for this problem? Why would somebody want to resolve this problem?
Feasibility
When designing the workforce development, you need to go behind the scenes of what your operations need in implementing the intervention (value proposition) and minimising potential risk. The feasibility risk that a workforce development intervention can’t manage, scale, or gain access to key resources, key activities or support from the key partners.
· Key Partners — Human resource partners can’t do this alone and needs partnerships from both internal and external stakeholders. They can be your line managers, peers, employees, professionals in specialised skillsets and even clients.
· Key Resources — These resources support and drive engagement of the proposed value proposition. Job aids, performance support tools, learning resources are some examples of such key resources. Also, these resources that support continuous learning need not be expensive or formal but must be meaningful, timely, useful, and relevant.
· Key Activities — These are the major activities leading or affecting the implementation of the proposed intervention. Some activities include workforce deployment targets planning, job analysis, learning needs analysis, existing onboarding programmes and organisational change initiatives.
Viability
The next set of building blocks is viability. The viability risk that the intervention can’t generate successful output streams such as return on investment, how well the workforce is willing to adopt and does the costs associated are too high to make it unsustainable.
· Cost Structure — To understand costs, consider the workforce capability to achieve business targets and its relationship to revenue as an impact on the corporation. Although the impact is not easy to quantify, it is key to sustaining the business. A pragmatic cost structure design allows management and stakeholders to tweak or reduce risks when adopting a particular workforce intervention.
· Output Streams — What would be the key benefits of the intervention strategy? How can workforce intervention be derived from the value proposition that supports business outcomes? What capabilities enabled for the organisation that supports business sustainability and innovation?
The Takeaway
To be successful, organisations need to continuously innovate and keep their competitive edge by iterating its workforce development model that create, deliver and capture value. Successful workforce development requires commitment from all stakeholders at different levels and making necessary adjustments for business growth.
Reference:
Osterwalder, A. and Papadakos, T. (2014). Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Osterwalder, A. and Pigneur, Yves, (2010). Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. NJ: Wiley.
Author Biography
Johnson Wong is a Learning & Performance Designer and Director of Empower Training and Consultancy Pte Ltd., where he provides services for clients in learning design, performance support tools and system, business design, human capital development and training advisory.
