The Overarching Invention: A Workplace Performance Discipline
The foundational explanation of what has become evident.
Read article →WORKPLACE EDUCATION AND PERFORMANCE INFRASTRUCTURE
A Workplace Performance Discipline
We invented a way for people and organisations to learn how to perform quality and productive work — and to progressively evidence and recognise that performance.
We did this by creating a universal Workplace Performance Discipline.
Job Expectations
↓
Learning
↓
Workplace Performance
↓
Evidence
↓
Recognition
↓
Improvement
THE MISSING DISCIPLINE
Work has always had jobs.
It has never had a universal Workplace Performance Discipline.
Every organisation expects people to perform. Jobs are described. People are recruited. Training is provided. Qualifications are issued. Policies and procedures are established. Performance is managed.
THE QUESTION
How do we know that a person can actually perform the quality and productive work expected of their job?
Workplace performance has largely been left to individual organisations, managers and workers to interpret for themselves.
WEPI changes this.
The Workplace Performance Discipline provides a common architecture and language for connecting job expectations, learning, workplace performance, evidence, recognition and improvement.
A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE
Different jobs. Different industries. A common way of understanding performance.
Every job is different. But the underlying performance skills people apply when performing their jobs can be described through a common language.
WEPI establishes that language through the Workplace Performance Skills Ontology.
It enables organisations to describe workplace performance in practical terms people can understand and apply.
What is expected of me?
What does good performance look like?
What do I already know how to do?
What do I need to learn?
How can I demonstrate my performance?
How can that performance be evidenced and recognised?
This transforms workplace performance from something that is often assumed into something that can progressively become evident.
HOW THE DISCIPLINE WORKS
An architecture connecting expectations, learning and actual performance.
The Workplace Performance Discipline is supported by an eight-layer architecture. Each layer builds upon the previous one.
01Performance SkillsA universal language for work
02Performance LevelsClear descriptions of increasing capability
03Job AlignmentMatching skills and levels to roles
04Job OwnershipClear expectations and accountability
05Learning for PerformanceLearning through real work
06EvidencePerformance demonstrated in context
07RecognitionValidated performance acknowledged
08Continuous ImprovementCapability grows over time
The architecture allows an organisation to start simply and progressively build its workplace performance capability.
Explore the architecture →FROM JOB EXPECTATIONS TO EVIDENCE
Knowing what good work looks like is only the beginning.
Expectation→Learning→Doing→Evidence→Recognition→Improvement
WEPI enables organisations to establish clear workplace performance expectations through JOBcodes. People can progressively understand and demonstrate their capability through SKILLcodes.
Learning can occur through actual work using Learning for Performance, supported by workplace evidence and manager validation.
Actual workplace performance becomes visible.
WHAT BECOMES POSSIBLE?
One discipline. Many organisational outcomes.
Once workplace performance can be described, understood, learned, demonstrated and evidenced, organisations have a new foundation upon which to improve.
Quality & productive work
Workforce capability
Learning for Performance
Recruitment & job matching
Performance conversations
Job evaluation
Safety
Leadership
Quality assurance
Qualifications & recognition
Compliance & evidence
Continuous improvement
These are not separate workforce problems. They meet at the same place: the performance of work.
INTEGRATING WHAT ORGANISATIONS ALREADY DO
Safety. Leadership. Quality. Qualifications.
WEPI does not seek to replace the systems organisations already use.
The Workplace Performance Discipline provides a way of connecting those systems to the performance of people in their actual jobs.
Through the Integrated Safety, Leadership, Quality and Qualification Framework — ISLQ², organisations can progressively connect these requirements through workplace performance.
THE COMMON DENOMINATOR
The common denominator is no longer the system.
The common denominator is the work being performed.
20+ YEARS
Development → integration → emergence
MYSKILLSmanager provided the development environment.
WEPI is what that development has become.
FROM MYSKILLSmanager TO WEPI
Twenty years of development has brought us here.
WEPI did not begin with a decision to build another workforce software platform.
Its origins lie in a much simpler question: How can people know what good work looks like and learn how to perform it?
Over two decades, that question led to the development of the Workplace Performance Skills Ontology, JOBcodes, SKILLcodes, workplace learning processes, evidence and recognition methods, algorithms and the supporting MYSKILLSmanager technology.
Together, they formed the architecture for a Workplace Performance Discipline.
Read our story →EXPLORE THE THINKING
The Workplace Performance Body of Knowledge
Understanding the thinking behind WEPI
WEPI has been designed to enable organisations to progressively build the capability required for quality and productive workplace performance.
At its foundation is the Universal Workplace Performance Discipline (UWPD) — a new discipline for understanding, developing, applying, evidencing and recognising workplace performance.
Introducing the Body of Knowledge
The six articles below have been selected from the Workplace Performance Body of Knowledge to provide a concise introduction to the discipline. Together they explain what has been invented, what workplace performance means, how people learn for performance, how the architecture works, how performance connects with organisational priorities, and how workplace performance can become evident.
They are not the complete Body of Knowledge. They are a pathway into it.
What Do We Mean by Workplace Performance?
Separating job performance from the discipline of workplace performance.
Read article →Learning for Performance
Connecting learning directly to the work people are expected to perform.
Read article →The Eight-Layer Workplace Performance Architecture
The floor plan showing how the discipline is constructed.
Read article →ISLQ² and Workplace Productivity
Connecting safety, leadership, quality and qualification through performance.
Read article →When Workplace Performance Becomes Evident
Moving from assumption to demonstrated, recognised performance.
Read article →The complete Body of Knowledge
These six articles form part of a much broader Workplace Performance Body of Knowledge developed to support progressive understanding and application of the Universal Workplace Performance Discipline.
The Body of Knowledge will continue to grow as the discipline is applied, tested, explained and shared. Further access to the Body of Knowledge will be progressively introduced.
THE WAREHOUSE DOORS ARE OPENING
See workplace performance differently.
WEPI provides organisations with something they have never previously had: a universal discipline for understanding, developing, evidencing, recognising and continuously improving workplace performance.
You can start with a job. You can start with a person. You can start with a workplace priority. And build from there.