Overview

This topic covers:

• Skills and Age Profiles
• Skills Audit
• Succession Planning
• Attitude and Culture.

Traditionally organizations have managed their assets by individual disciplines and asset classes. Often these groups dealt with specific portions or functions of an asset's life cycle, namely:

• Strategic planning
• Asset design
• Construction
• Operations
• Maintenance.

In some agencies the competitive business environment is forcing significant staff reductions and more use of contractors and outside companies to manage assets. This has meant a reassessment of the way that assets are managed, and a more holistic staffing approach is emerging.

Many organizations have realized the importance of retaining and improving knowledge about their infrastructure, through management of information, decision processes and training. This requires a blend of new and existing skills from the planning, design, construction, operations, and maintenance disciplines.

Organizations should identify their future asset management workloads and match this to the skills required. Accurately matching the existing skills and resources with the required roles and responsibilities will be key to a successful asset management program.

The main challenges will be to move the organization to a service delivery culture and workflow where:

• The mechanical, electrical, and civil disciplines are broken down into multi-skilled asset management workforces with support and expert systems that allow them to make sound workface decisions
• There may be a heavily contracted or competitive workforce environment in which in-house staff compete for work
• The gradual reduction of in-house core activities to the point where only the managerial role remains
• Effective asset management abilities are attained in the organization.

If the organization focuses on human resources, it is more likely to achieve an effective and sustainable asset management program.

Skills and Age Profiles

With trends to reducing overall employee numbers the greater use of contract staff and the outsourcing of many maintenance jobs, managers must consider the cost of the knowledge drain to the organization.

This comes in a number of forms, and has important implications:

• Redundancy and retirement often involves staff who have long service with the organization, and have inherent asset management knowledge that is undocumented
• Contract staff gain company-specific skills and experience at a cost to the organization, and take these skills with them when the contract finishes
• Outsourcing companies may manage assets, but often with great difficulty in the short term, due to lack of background and experience. The knowledge gained in this process then stays with the outsourcing company, and is not always returned to the organization for future planning and management decision-making.

There are a number of methods of ensuring an ongoing skill stream. These include:

• Formalized development programs for young professionals, where staff are rotated through various facets of the business and benefit from the experience of a variety of experienced staff and mentors
• Continuing professional development, offering staff the opportunity to continue their education in a specialized area for mutual benefit, and fulfillment of a role to become available in the future
• Informal working relationships, which encourage professional discussion, information sharing and understanding
• Intensive skills transfer programs from consultants, contract employees, outsourcing companies or staff leaving the organization.

While helpful, these programs are of little use without an understanding of the skills that are currently available, and the skills needed for the future.

Skills Audit

Many technical managers of infrastructure assets have gained most of their Asset Management knowledge from their work experience, peers and other colleagues, and very little from their base qualifications.

It is this invaluable experiential knowledge that is usually not accounted for and is often lost as staff members leave the organization or retire, as shown below:

It is important to find where asset management knowledge lies, and to assess the organization's skills requirements.

An employee skills audit uses the following information:

• Employment history and records
• Training database
• Staff skills questionnaires
• Interviews with staff.

This will produce an asset management skills matrix.

Three factors should particularly be noted from the audit:

• Areas of strength and weakness
• Skills compared to role and responsibilities and to the age profile
• Attrition rates of staff.

The organization must also identify its future desired levels of asset management resources and skills.

The gap between the current and future states can be addressed by:

• Staff development and succession plans
• Training
• Recruitment programs.

Succession Planning

Succession plans ensure that adequate skilled staff will continue to be available from within the organization.

The process of succession planning involves identifying short (1-2 years) and long-term (3-5 years) future skills shortages, and actively positioning staff to fill these roles.

It is difficult to predict for all eventualities, especially resignations, however the skills matrix will indicate areas for concern that can specifically be addressed, including:

• Significant proportions of asset management staff with age profiles approaching 60 years
• High staff turnover rates in key asset management roles
• Downsizing measures that will affect specific groups
• Lack of appropriately qualified staff to include in the succession plan.

While not fool proof, succession planning provides a degree of confidence in being able to maintain the desired level of skills within the organization.

Attitude and Culture

The general demeanor of an organization is defined by its culture and the attitudes of staff. The way in which the organization works together as a team to produce appropriate outputs is largely influenced by these two factors.

The culture of an organization is defined by the people, and is an accumulation of staff experiences and reaction to historical events. Culture can be changed, and will naturally change over time, with industry and management trends and with the turnover of staff.

An example is the influence of unions. Where there was a rigid attitude that resisted change, any management initiative could be met with suspicion and on occasion union action. Over time, unions have started to focus on change that improves skills, retains good staff and results in better services to customers, through enterprise agreements that are designed to let employees and the employer negotiate specific terms and conditions, including advanced asset management practices. The key cultural change has been a much stronger and more harmonious management-staff relationship.

The introduction of any asset management program will involve forced cultural change. It is a key component of change management, and must include the process of understanding and realigning the organization's core beliefs and values to asset management.

Attitude and culture are intricately linked, attitude being influenced by cultural factors like socioeconomic or generational trends, as well as the underlying values of staff.

Attitude to a new asset management program can be influenced by:

• Early involvement, e.g. in program formulation not just implementation
• Relevant and timely communications, i.e. before rumors start to spread
• Alignment of the program to the underlying values of the staff, e.g. that they care about their assets and are committed to achieving a 'best practice' at lowest life cycle cost
• Inclusion and consultation with employee unions and work groups.

Organization changes will affect attitude, and the following factors should be given special consideration:

• Restructuring and downsizing can bear significant weight on the attitude of staff. There is often a reshuffle of experienced staff. This can mean a loss of expertise in relation to the assets for which they used to be responsible. If the restructuring or changed process is not handled effectively, despondency and apathy can result in a substantial loss of information, and enthusiasm for the asset management program
• As work practices change to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the delivery of service, a more flexible use will be made staff. The organization needs to recognize the expansion and diversion of roles
• Management style will change over time and potentially significant changes, like the introduction of asset management, may leave some staff, especially long serving staff, feeling alienated. The business risk is that they will leave and take valuable experiential asset knowledge with them.

An organizational attitude and culture positively inclined to asset management will go a long way to producing well-managed infrastructure.