How ASIC created a confident, agile, and capability-led workforce

The gap: Equipping the workforce with knowledge and capabilities to adapt to change 

The Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) is Australia’s integrated corporate, markets, financial services, and consumer credit regulator. An independent commission of the Australian Government, their vision for a fair, strong, and efficient financial system for all Australians is achieved by monitoring and promoting market integrity and consumer protection in the Australian financial system with regulatory activities.

Cost-of-living pressures, climate change, rapid technological transformation, and demographic forces are reshaping the needs of consumers and businesses. These trends inform ASIC’s strategic priorities and operational capabilities, one of which is staff culture, capabilities, and capacity.

ASIC has created an environment for success that empowers their people to make confident decisions, achieve ambitious regulatory outcomes, and feel valued as individuals through their Capability Framework.

“Working in an evolving regulatory environment has its challenges, and we need to continually ensure our people have the required skills for their roles. We achieve this by aligning the required skill sets with our Capability Framework,” said Meaghan Brady, Lead, Leadership & Learning, People & Development.

ASIC’s Capability Framework has allowed Leadership & Learning to work strategically to create value for the organisation and operationalise their strategy to enable performance.

To inform ASIC’s learning offering and support team development across the organisation, an assessment of actual learning needs via a Learning Needs Analysis is undertaken. Having data sets of employee capability levels for over 2500 people could only be effectively and accurately managed with a dedicated tool.

The solution: Clear capability plans for everyone 

ASIC has integrated their Capability Framework in Acorn’s LMS, known internally as Learnhub. Each role at AISC has been assigned specific core, technical, and leadership capabilities with defined proficiency levels.

Using what they call checkpoint assessments, employees regularly self-evaluate against their role-specific capabilities. The system calculates a preliminary capability score based on the employee’s responses. Managers then validate those checkpoint results, using real examples of work to arrive at an agreed, validated proficiency level of the role-specific capabilities.

“A notification goes to the manager… and a conversation will occur: I’ve given myself a four, you’ve given me a two—what should we do?” explained Meaghan.

From there, the system recommends targeted learning activities based on that capability and proficiency level. Every individual has clear next steps to develop emerging capabilities revealed in their checkpoint results. 

The final validated capability score is stored in Learnhub and: 

• Highlights an employee’s emerging proficiency level, aligned level, or a level above their role’s expected proficiency 
• Enables managers to spot areas for development and retention risk 
• Feeds learning resources that match the employee’s current level
• Informs workforce planning with proactive gap analysis. 

Attaching capabilities and proficiency levels to position descriptions has also levelled up recruitment across the organisation, ensuring the right people are placed in the right roles.

“We may ask an applicant to perform a work assessment task… and the talent management team gives that hiring manager a rubric that you work through to score what that capability level has been demonstrated at,” said Meaghan.

Internally, the distribution of capability across teams ensures Meaghan and her team are making data-informed decisions. “If we have a team of 50 people that are scored well above where they should be—are we doing the right thing by them? We have to make sure we then develop them in a way that’s going to retain their specialist knowledge.” 

The impact: Trusted and high-performing people supporting all Australians

Acorn’s Capabilities tool has given ASIC a map of existing capabilities—but sparked a change in behaviours towards learning.  Every single piece of learning content (including partnered content) is tagged to capabilities and proficiency levels, and employees can immediately take action on their capability plans and their development goals.

“Having this tool where they have control over their careers has been huge for some people,” Meaghan said. “And we’ve seen an increase in the number of people that have capability plans… and those that have interest capabilities. People aren’t just wanting to develop what you’ve told me that I need to do my job, but also the area of interest.” 

With interest-based capability plans rising and over 80% of employees completing their initial capability checkpoints, ASIC has a clear picture of workforce readiness.

That data has amplified the Leadership & Learning team’s role as a strategic business partner. “We can show the business the value of Learning and Development and that Learnhub is not just for mandatory training.”

Dashboards help managers identify high performers and areas of risk, as well as the Leadership & Learning team to design contextualised learning programs delivered in the ASIC way: to address just-in-time learning needs, learning for future work tasks, or changes to the regulatory environment.

“We use a series of data points that include ASIC’s corporate plan, Group and Business Unit plans, and employee development plan information to ascertain what capabilities are needed to successfully execute projects and tasks.” said Meaghan.

“Our people are at the heart of all we do, using Human Centred Design principles to devise the user experience for employees when using Learnhub, interacting with learning resources, and upskilling.”

The Capability Framework supports a psychologically safe work environment through clear role expectations and capability development resources. This is reflected in the organisation’s confidence and trust in Leadership & Learning at ASIC.