L&D at Cisco Systems: Shifting from Competency Model to Skills Mapping

Case Code: CLHR096 Case Length: 5 Pages Period: 2018-2022 Pub Date: 2024 Teaching Note: Available

Price: Rs.200 Organization: Cisco Systems, Inc. Industry: Technology & Communications Countries: United States Themes: Training & Development, Human Resource Planning, Employee Development

Abstract

The case ‘L&D at Cisco Systems: Shifting from Competency Model to Skills Mapping’ describes how Cisco decided to shift away from its competency model based Learning & Development (L&D) approach to a more consistent, skills-based approach through Degreed, a learning experience platform.

The case first touches upon the issues that the company faced due to legacy L&D system. Various internal challenges included outdated learning infrastructure, siloed learning experiences, slow content creation process, and a reactive approach to skill training requirements. The case then discusses Cisco’s solution to its legacy LMS by shifting from a monolithic architecture to a more modern and user-friendly L&D platform in partnership with Degreed. The Degreed platform helped its employees discover, consume, organize, share, and track all relevant courses and skilling programs taking place in different offices across the company and facilitate self-guided learning.

Cisco also decided to switch focus from content creation to content curation and redefined its L&D roles and harnessed the knowledge of subject matter experts (SMEs) from across the company, in addition to those within L&D teams. Cisco also tracked the impact of this new learning platform on employee engagement and found that nearly half of its employees became active users of the Degreed Platform by 2020.

Issues

• Identify the need to align the L&D Roles in accordance with learning and development programs.
• Describe the difference between the competency model approach and skills-based approach.
• Discuss the importance of evaluating the learning and development programs on timely basis.
• Evaluate the contribution of learning and development to support an organizational business strategy.

Introduction

In October 2018, Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco), a US-based technology company, decided to shift away from its competency model based Learning & Development (L&D) approach to a more consistent, skills-based approach through Degreed, a learning experience platform. The platform used machine learning to provide personalized content recommendations to employees based on the skills required in their current roles as well as skills needed for future roles aligned to their own career development plans. This enabled Cisco to ensure that its employees developed the core skills currently relevant for the business despite changing times.

Keywords

Training and Development; Employee Engagement; Training Implementation; Proof of Value; Measure > Learn> Perform cycle; Skill Development; Learning Management Systems; Training Evaluation; Competency Model;

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