Building Skills Frameworks

Being responsible for the safe transit of millions of passengers, Network Rail needs to have the right people in the right roles. Its initial focus was to build skills frameworks for its Project Management community, where there was a clear need to streamline career development and engage staff more in their own progression.

‘We wanted to put this front and centre, rather than it be a tick box exercise’ said Head of Professional Development, Barry Barrington. ‘Comaea’s platform is not only enabling us to clearly see current competencies and any gaps we need to fill, it’s also empowering staff to take control of their careers.’

Comaea is the world’s leading provider of Enterprise Competency Management Solutions working across sectors and organisation types.

For Network Rail, Comaea’s competency management system is home to their Project Delivery Capability Framework (PDCF) which describes the job roles, capabilities and learning for Project Delivery Professionals across government.

The cloud-based software provides a structured approach to skills capture and development both for individuals and the business. A mobile app allows users an instant overview.

‘Our goal is to support Network Rail with the resourcing of the right people for the right project’ said Tony Martin, Comaea’s Managing Director.

‘They need to be able to match competencies with risk. They need to be confident that a project manager is experienced enough to deliver a high risk project, or that resource isn’t wasted by a highly skilled project manager delivering a low risk, task based project.’

Comaea is now home to the competency suite for project professionals across Capital Investment and Delivery. It has also been introduced across Controls, Sponsorship, Document and Information Management, Risk and Value Management, and Planning professions.

The system’s ability to create and manage multiple frameworks complements the various professions, allowing responsibilities to be assigned to users, enabling them to manage their own teams and to provide the right level of reporting.

‘We chose Comaea because of the direct link it gives us between competence and development options, and its great reporting functionality’ said Barry. ‘It also allows us to create frameworks in line with awarding bodies so we can incorporate specific technical competencies.

‘For example, Document and Information Management have competencies aligned to the public sector’s best practice and ISO standards, and Sponsorship have access to legislative as well as professional competencies such as CDM, CSM and Interoperability.’

Driving engagement and efficiencies

One of the biggest benefits Network Rail has realised so far has been providing staff with access to training and development offerings specific to their role and in line with competence requirements.

‘Previously staff would apply for any and every course because they had no insight as to which opportunities best suited their roles or career aims’ continued Barry.

‘Comaea has changed that. By streamlining the process, we’re cutting waiting lists for courses. Staff feel more valued and over time, we will likely see higher retention rates.’

Meanwhile, Network Rail is already getting value and experiencing a return on their investment. Their previous Competence Assessment Tool (CAT) used to take around 2.5 hours to complete but with Comaea, that’s been reduced to just 45-minutes.

With it being used across the business, Network Rail is also realising a huge cost saving. In just two years, use of the system has more than doubled from 1,100 to over 2,500 users, expanding into Technical Authority, Route Services, and Project Engineering.

Comaea’s competency management system is also being introduced as part of onboarding for graduates. They have access to it from the very beginning, enabling them to start thinking about where they want to go in the business.

‘We’ve seen real benefits for Network Rail around graduates’ added Tony. ‘Conversations about their roles are much more structured because they know what ‘good’ looks like. They can see a development route, which might not always involve formal training but exposure via a placement within the business instead. That empowers them to take control of their careers from the start.’

With the constant evolution of Comaea, Network Rail is looking forward to what development and exciting features the new C11 version will bring in the future.

‘Comaea allows us to see below the surface, to identify the next level challenges’ concluded Barry. ‘It is flexible, we can textualise it for our business and Tony and his team are excellent at supporting us. Network Rail has been looking at how they manage competencies across the board and Comaea has been held up as best practice.