Skills Needs Analysis
Yorkshire Housing: a skills needs analysis for Housing Services
Yorkshire Housing provide more than 15,000 affordable homes throughout Yorkshire, offer 400 sub-market
and market rent homes, develop over 300 new affordable homes each year, provide
management services to over 900 leaseholders and help many people onto the
property ladder as the governments local HomeBuy agency.
Their current Corporate Plan is focussed on achieving excellence and they have restructured their housing services so they can deliver against their corporate objectives. Staff have been restructured into area teams which include roles from the functional Neighbourhood Services, Income and Finance, Older Persons Services, Community Development, Housing Needs and Customer Services teams. To ensure staff are able to perform their roles within the new structure, Yorkshire Housing have created the Housing Services Learning Paths.
The Housing Services Learning Paths are a programme of learning for staff in all roles and will include core learning on customer service, interpersonal skills, self-management and understanding the Yorkshire Housing business. An individual skills needs analysis will highlight other areas for development specific to the individual's role.
Escalate has been a key partner in identifying the core learning needs and creating the skills needs analysis survey. The Learner Development Officer has worked closely with Yorkshire Housing to identify the skills required by creating a competency framework that takes into account the knowledge, expertise and behaviours required for each individual role. These have been mapped across all roles within Housing Services and used to determine the questions for the Housing Services Skills Needs Analysis Survey.
The online survey will be used to identify areas for development, which has been made specific to each role so we can identify the individual learning needs as well as the learning needs of a larger team. The survey has been written using Yorkshire Housing¿s own eLearning portal and is fully integrated with online learning materials and the appraisal process.
The key factor in this work is the specificity of it - this is not an "off the shelf" needs analysis adapted to fit the client, but a truly bespoke analysis designed around the needs and objectives of Yorkshire Housing at both an organisational and an individual level.
For more information on creating a bespoke skills needs analysis for your team or organisation please contact Vicki Illingworth (Learner Development Officer) on 01274 235637 or email escalate@bradford.ac.uk.
The Bradford Council Regeneration Academy Skills Needs Analysis
Escalate worked with Integreat Yorkshire and Bradford Metropolitan District Council to develop a skills needs analysis tool for a pilot group of staff working in the newly established Regeneration Department. The Regeneration Department includes staff working across five functions of the council: Asset Management, Economic Development, Highways and Transportation, Housing and Planning who will work together to transform the City of Bradford. The Regeneration Academy was created to develop the skills of this workforce in place shaping, project management and leadership.
The University of Bradford was commissioned to write a competency framework for each of the three skills areas, and to develop a skills needs analysis tool for individuals to assess their current skills in each of the areas. Individuals attended two learning workshops in the Escalate Centre, one to help them do a skills audit and another to help them prepare a personal development plan to support them through the Academy.
Individuals benefited from a 1:1 feedback session with an expert in personal development planning and were directed onto an appropriate learning path through the Academy. The pilot was completed in May 2009, and from this work Escalate has evaluated a model for doing a skills needs analysis with a large group of work-based learners.
