Human Resources... HR... Human Capital Management, no matter what you call it, people are the beating heart of any organization. Taking a data driven approach to mapping the skill-sets of the people in your organization not only allows Leadership to optimize team formation, but provides an opportunity for hidden talents in your people to emerge.
People are the key to the success of any organization. We refer to the individual as the “soul” who fills and occupies a specific “role” in a department/organization. These are two very distinct but connected pieces to the intricate puzzle of building a strong and connected organization. Every team leader is aware of what role(s) they need filled in order to accomplish their required tasks and meet leadership’s goals. These team leaders rely on human resources to help find and retain, through a myriad of benefits, the most talented souls to fill these roles.
Human resources professionals accountable for succession planning are aware that it is imperative to have a good base of souls to continually and quickly fill team roles and potential gaps due to turn over or retirement. This is why many organizations provide benefits such as continued learning programs to help the development of the souls who are already employed to avoid lengthy gaps in vacated roles.
Exaptive spoke to one of our partners, Climate KIC, an organization involved in climate change innovation, regarding their work with Exaptive's Cognitive City platform and how they are using it to elevate their understanding of team composition and skills which is changing the way their entire organization is operating. The Cognitive City isn’t taking the place of the HR Software that is being used internally but augmenting the work of that team and helping leaders better understand the talents and skills of existing team members. Thus, strengthening their team and removing silos across the organization.
We asked Carys Boyle, the Program Manager in Climate KIC’s Community Activation Team, how they were currently using the Cognitive City Platform to augment an ongoing reorganization of their team and assisting their HR department and team leads to restructure in a data driven manner. Carys told us, “We have created a Skills City, in our internal, staff-only Cognitive City environment which maps the skills and knowledge areas of each soul by proficiency level; helping us visually see things like languages, location, interests, as well as previous projects that a staff member has worked on. This information helps us to understand who has the necessary capabilities/expertise to assist on specific tasks/projects. It also helps us with team-fitting exercises, which is particularly important as we move into a more agile, project-based model. We too have a better understanding of where there would be interest in personal development training/courses.” Being able to see data that helps in real time as well as have an understanding of future training and interest is extremely helpful in strategic project and succession planning.
Carys and I continued to discuss the current use of the Cognitive City platform inside Climate KIC and I was EXCITED to learn, “It has subsequently allowed us to understand for the first time, where there are currently capability gaps that we need to address in the workforce, either through training or recruitment. Going forward, the Skills City will be a key tool used by the project-fitting team, who assign people to projects based on capabilities.” When we first began working together in 2018 there was a hope that in time things “like this” could happen. To see and hear about the wins the organization is experiencing is reaffirming to hear that this data driven approach is not only working but changing their organization so it’s less siloed and more integrated.
Modern HR requires knowledge and understanding far beyond payroll, benefits, basic skills, and location to really propel an organization toward success. Hearing Carys say, “One of the biggest insights that have emerged from launching “Skills City” is just how much existing capability and expertise we have in the organization that we are under-utilizing, or simply were not aware of,” has been the highlight of my week, because that is exactly what the Cognitive City was built to do. The goal of the Cognitive City platform is to use data to help understand complex organisms, organizations, and problems and make real change possible to better help experts solve wicked problems.
Contact our team today to allow us to set up your own customized trial Cognitive City.
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