The Competencies for Life podcast series connects with community leaders in the City of Calgary to discuss how we can create a more adaptable and agile workforce based on the Competencies for Life framework. These success stories dive deep into how the Competencies for Life helped guide their personal and professional paths. We highlight the first 3 interviews in this article with Janet Lane, Mayor Nenshi and Jim Gibson.

Last week we explored the first three clusters of the Competencies for Life model and took a deeper look into the Problem Solving, Self-Reliance and Collaboration clusters. Developing these enabling competencies shown in the Competencies for Life model will not only help you adapt and adopt new job-specific competencies, but it will help power every Calgarian in the new economy. Today, we are looking into the final three clusters of the Competencies for Life model which includes Communication, Core Literacies and Core Workplace Skills.

As a city, we need a plan to continuously develop our competencies better and faster than any other. To start, we need to align on the important enabling competencies and just as important, we need to agree on what we call them. Today we will be exploring three of the six clusters, Problem Solving, Self-Reliance, and Collaboration.

In 2019-20, a team of researchers from the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University, Alberta University for the Arts, and the University of Guelph conducted a multi-staged study to identify the competencies that were in highest demand today.

How we choose to develop talent will define Calgary’s future social and economic prosperity. To become a city that adapts, Calgary must become a city that develops talent faster and better than others. Calgary must transition from the traditional closed talent development system, which is defined by isolated learning experiences (like the path from kindergarten to postsecondary to professional development), into an open, lifelong personalized talent development system. What is the Talent Development System?

In its most basic form, a marketplace is a process of buying and selling goods or services. Today, you should think about talent as a marketplace. The talent marketplace is not based on the exchange of goods or money, rather it is based on the development and exchange of competencies.

Calgary is a city in transformation. Our city's ability to transform is defined by Calgarian’s ability to adapt to change. However, being adaptable can also be proactive and intentional; like having a plan. Today, we all need a plan. Competencies are the combination of ability, knowledge, and skills to complete a job or perform a task and as a city, we need to shift from thinking about jobs to thinking about competencies.