When deciding whether to adopt established frameworks like the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA), Data Capability Framework (DCF), or the Global Skills Framework (GSF) for capability development versus creating your own custom framework, it is crucial to evaluate your organisation’s unique needs, resources, and goals.
In this post we break down the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches to help you make an informed decision. For each advantage or disadvantage, the delivery strategies and recommendations provide actionable steps and examples to ensure practical implementation, making the decision-making process easier and more effective for your organisation.
Advantages of Using Established Frameworks (e.g. SFIA, DCF)
1. Proven and Standardised
Consistency and Benchmarking:
- Delivery: Implementing an established framework like SFIA or DSF provides your organisation with a common language and structure for defining skills and competencies. To embed this, begin by mapping your existing roles to the framework’s skills and levels, using the framework’s predefined competencies.
- Recommendation: Use the framework native Skills Assessment Tools to benchmark your internal skill levels against global industry standards. This makes it easier to identify strengths and gaps and to compare your workforce capabilities with peers and competitors.
Best Practices:
- Delivery: Established frameworks incorporate a wealth of knowledge and experience from various industries. Leverage this by aligning your internal job descriptions and competency profiles with the framework’s structure, ensuring you benefit from globally recognised best practices.
- Recommendation: Conduct workshops with department heads to adapt the framework’s competencies to your organisational context. This customisation can help translate generic descriptions into actionable behaviours that align with your strategic objectives.
2. Time-Efficient
Quicker Implementation:
- Delivery: Frameworks like SFIA, DCF, and DSF are comprehensive (within the domains they cover) and ready for use. Start by conducting a rapid skills assessment using pre-built templates. This reduces the time required to develop job-specific competency profiles.
- Recommendation: Use the framework’s pre-mapped roles for IT, management, and leadership to create initial role profiles. Implement these profiles in your HR system, allowing for immediate deployment in learning and development plans.
Immediate Use:
- Delivery: Implement “out-of-the-box” solutions for skill mapping, training needs analysis, and succession planning. Use the framework’s existing tools and templates to accelerate roll-out.
- Recommendation: Initiate pilot programs in a few departments to demonstrate value quickly, then scale across the organisation based on feedback and success metrics.
3. Comprehensive and Scalable
Wide Range of Skills:
- Delivery: Established frameworks cover diverse technical and professional skills across various levels. Map your entire organisation’s roles to the framework and categorise them by job family (e.g. technical, managerial, or support).
- Recommendation: Use the framework’s career development tool to create detailed pathways for technical and managerial staff, ensuring that even niche roles are well-defined.
Scalable for Growth:
- Delivery: As your organisation evolves, extend the framework to include new skills or capabilities. SFIA, for example, is frequently updated with new competencies, making it easy to integrate emerging trends.
- Recommendation: Set up an annual review cycle with department heads to assess and incorporate new skills from updated versions of the framework. This ensures that the framework grows with your organisation.
4. Supports Compliance and Reporting
Compliance with Standards:
- Delivery: Use the framework’s predefined standards to demonstrate compliance with industry regulations and certifications. For example, SFIA’s structured approach is often used in ISO certification processes.
- Recommendation: Map your compliance requirements to the framework’s competencies and create a compliance matrix that tracks adherence to industry standards.
Clear Reporting:
- Delivery: Frameworks like SFIA provide structured reporting formats for capability maturity and staff readiness. Use these templates to create a consistent reporting system for audits and client requirements.
- Recommendation: Implement dashboards using the framework’s reporting guidelines to track skill levels across teams and functions, making it easy to report on capability maturity during client engagements or regulatory audits.
5. Cross-Industry Recognition
Mobility and Career Growth:
- Delivery: Adopt frameworks that are widely recognised, such as SFIA, DCF, or DSF, to support employee career growth and mobility. Use this as a selling point for recruitment and retention, showing how your development plans align with globally accepted standards.
- Recommendation: Offer framework-based certifications and training for employees, enhancing their marketability and career prospects.
Vendor and Partner Alignment:
- Delivery: Align your internal capabilities with external vendors and partners who also use SFIA or DCF. This creates a common language for project requirements, skill expectations, and collaboration.
- Recommendation: Use the framework to define capability requirements for vendors in RFPs and project charters, ensuring consistency in skills and expectations.
Disadvantages of Using Established Frameworks
1. Lack of Customisation
Limited Flexibility:
- Delivery: To address the rigidity of established frameworks, create custom role profiles by combining elements from the framework with your unique organisational requirements.
- Recommendation: Set up a working group to adapt the framework to your needs, incorporating company-specific behaviours or cultural values into standard competency descriptions.
Generic Descriptions:
- Delivery: Supplement broad competencies with specific technical, behavioural, and knowledge based descriptions relevant to your business. Use focus groups with senior staff to refine competencies.
- Recommendation: Create a hybrid competency library that includes both standard framework derived competencies and custom, role-specific ones for a more tailored approach.
2. Over-Complexity for Small Teams
Too Comprehensive for Small Organisations:
- Delivery: Implement a simplified version of the framework that focuses only on core competencies. For smaller teams, use a condensed version with only a few key skills and levels.
- Recommendation: Start with the essential competencies and gradually build out as the organisation scales, rather than adopting the entire framework at once.
Unused Capabilities:
- Delivery: Conduct a needs analysis to identify which elements of the framework are relevant. Implement only the components that align with your current needs.
- Recommendation: Customise the framework by removing irrelevant skills and levels, simplifying implementation and reducing administrative overhead.
3. Upfront Costs and Learning Curve
Licensing Fees:
- Delivery: If cost is an issue, consider starting with the free or lower-tier versions of the framework. Many frameworks offer limited access that might be sufficient for initial implementation.
- Recommendation: Look for frameworks with flexible licensing options or a country licence or explore open-source alternatives like the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF).
Training and Adoption:
- Delivery: Use phased rollouts to introduce the framework gradually, starting with HR and L&D teams. Use workshops and e-learning modules to train staff on the framework’s structure and application.
- Recommendation: Create “cheat sheets” and quick reference guides to simplify adoption. Pair these with hands-on training sessions using real-world role mapping examples.
Advantages of Building a Custom (‘Roll-Your-Own’) Framework
1. Tailored to Organisational Needs
Full Customisation:
- Delivery: Involve multiple stakeholders in designing the framework, including HR, Learning & Development, and departmental leaders. Use brainstorming sessions and focus groups to define competencies that reflect your strategic priorities and unique operational needs.
- Recommendation: Develop a competency development task force with representatives from teams across the organisation to ensure the framework reflects all areas of the business.
Specificity:
- Delivery: Build competencies that align with unique technical needs or niche market requirements. Use role analysis to capture specialised skills that are critical to your business.
- Recommendation: Develop role blueprints that include detailed behavioural and technical expectations, ensuring the framework supports nuanced skill areas that established frameworks might miss.
2. Cultural Fit
Reflects Organisational Culture:
- Delivery: Incorporate core company values, mission, and vision into your framework. Design competencies that are not just skill-based but also reflect the specific domain knowledge, behaviours and mindsets that align with your corporate culture.
- Recommendation: Use employee feedback and cultural surveys to inform the development of these competencies. Create a “Culture Handbook” that ties behaviours in the competency model back to the company’s broader cultural initiatives.
Flexibility:
- Delivery: Design a modular framework that can be easily updated as your business evolves. Keep the structure loose, allowing for easy modifications and additions.
- Recommendation: Implement a regular review cycle (e.g. quarterly or bi-annually) to ensure the framework remains aligned with changing business needs.