The Human Resource Bank offers a partial solution to this endemic problem. A newly hired employee is asked if she would grant permission for all the SKAs she has listed and documented in their resume and interview, to be placed in the organization’s Human Resource Bank. In this way, her inventoried skills, knowledge and aptitudes can be linked directly to future jobs in the organization, short-term task force assignments, preparation of training program and so forth, even though these SKAs may be of little use to the new employee in her first job assignment.
On the Job Experiences
If the person/job overlap is not too small or too large, new job occupants will not only be challenged and motivated—they will also acquire new skills and knowledge. These new competencies should be noted and added to the HR Bank. Often an employee who has recently acquired a new set of skills, or new knowledge about a particular operation of the organization is best qualified to use these competencies as a member of a short-term task force or as a teacher of this skill or knowledge to other employees.
Members of the organization who acquired the skill set or knowledge many years ago may be indifferent to these skills or knowledge; or the skills or knowledge may be out-of-date or partially forgotten. The employee who has recently acquired a skill set or mastered a body of knowledge is likely to be more sensitive to the struggles of other employees in their own acquisition of these skills or mastery of this knowledge. They know what it is like to be a learner and can concretely demonstrate how skills and knowledge can be wedded with motivation to produce highly effective aptitudes.
Training and Education Inside and Outside the Organization
Institutions are now being identified as innovative and successful if they are learning organizations. Through education and training programs, these organizations demonstrate their commitment to ongoing human resource development. They also demonstrate this commitment by ensuring that their employees make use of newly acquired skills, knowledge and aptitudes. The organization potentially benefits from the money and time it has allocated to its developmental programs; furthermore, its employees anticipate that they will be able to use the new SKAs they have acquired. The application of these new SKAs not only reinforces the learning of these competencies, but also justifies the time and energy expended by employees as learners.
A human resource development plan that is comprehensive typically includes not only programs that are offered inside the organization, but also programs offered by external training and educational institutions. It is essential that information be collected for the HR Bank about the content of courses being offered in these outside programs and about any assessment of the employee’s competencies that are conducted by those leading these programs. Given that the HR Bank focuses on strengths, it is not necessary for those managing the bank to record enrollment of employees in every training or educational program.
