Helsinki Region Environmental Services and the Transformation of L&D Leadership
The pace of change in the world challenges us both as individuals and as organizations. We are sometimes forced to adapt quickly to various upheavals. Often, these changes in the external operating environment also challenge organizations to change their internal practices and processes.
“The cycle of an organization’s operations can also vary internally, requiring the development of skills at different paces,” summarizes Merja Soosalu, HR Director at Helsinki Region Environmental Services (HSY).
Project objectives
Changes in the operating environment always require us to take a fresh look at our operations, and this often means learning new things as well. Continuous learning and skills development are not merely tools for individual career development, but also key factors and prerequisites for the vitality and success of organizations.
In HSY’s new strategy, the future of work is one of the key themes, as well as how to attract new talent to HSY in the future and, on the other hand, how to increase the organization’s retention power so that current employees find their work even more inspiring.
In addition to these, HSY felt it was necessary to take a more comprehensive look at learning and skills development practices and to more systematically adopt existing methods across the organization in connection with the rollout of a new digital learning platform.
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We were involved in this work to design the components of the skills development model.
Project stages
Strategic learning design is critical for today’s organizations when they ensure that employees’ skills not only meet current needs but also guide the organization toward its future goals while preserving its ability to adapt to change.
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By aligning the organization’s L&D methods, structures, and processes with its strategy, and by establishing ways to integrate the resulting practices into daily operations, we make skills development goal-oriented and clear. Clear goals help both employees in developing their own skills and supervisors in managing skills, and make it easier to assess the effectiveness of learning.
From an analysis of the current state to tailored solutions through design
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In designing the L&D model, we adopted a design-based approach by first identifying the organization’s current state: how do employees experience learning and skills development, and, on the other hand, how can we, as an organization, manage and plan learning and skills development in a more goal-oriented manner while also anticipating future competence needs?
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Understanding of the current state of L&D at HSY was deepened through interviews with employees and management, as well as a survey. These revealed that, as a rule, HSY employees have good opportunities for skills development and learning, and the organization had a positive learning culture. However, there was a need for consistent practices. Both employees and management hoped for clearer guidelines and objectives for skills development and learning.
Based on the assessment, we defined planning principles for our work, which guided the development throughout the project. We used a participatory planning approach, including a series of workshops and consultations with leadership, supervisors, and employees.
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The co-development approach made it possible to widely involve staff working in different roles and organizational units. The goal of using co-development was to create a shared understanding of the importance of skills development from the perspective of both individual employees and different organizational units, and to engage employees on a broad scale.
Identifying Strategic Capabilities
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The work with the leadership team began with the identification and definition of strategic capabilities. Based on HSY’s strategy, we considered what kind of expertise HSY needs in order to achieve the goals defined in the strategy. Strategic capabilities are the organization’s core areas of expertise, which include skills, knowledge, and technologies. Identifying them helps the organization determine what kind of expertise is critical to the organization’s success now and in the future. Conscious development of capabilities brings strategic work to the practical level.
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In a workshop for supervisors, strategic capabilities were assessed from the perspective of employees' skills. Additionally, in a workshop organized for employees, we identified various ways to learn and develop skills at HSY in accordance with the 70–20–10 model. ​
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Development of the L&D model and piloting of skill discussions
The goal of building organizational capabilities is to develop the organization’s skills and expertise so that it can succeed and achieve its objectives. A capability model serves as a kind of roadmap that guides the organization in identifying the capabilities it needs and how to develop them. The capability model helps the organization plan and steer this process.
The design approach involves iteration and experimentation. As part of the project, we designed a pilot for HSY to support the development of the capability model, in which we tested team-specific skill discussions considering the units’ strategic goals and future skills needs.
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The discussions yielded good results and were also seen as a necessary addition from the perspective of L&D.
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Building capabilities is an essential part of an organization’s success, helping to improve efficiency and productivity while ensuring the organization’s flexibility and adaptability in a changing operating environment.
Do you want to hear more about our work?
Kuulas & Co is a design agency and training provider specializing in organizational development. We help our clients align their strategic skills needs with their employees’ career and learning aspirations.
At the same time, we coach employees to become visionary developers of their own work and their work community. Let’s shape the future of work together and learn together!