Identify Performance Issues Using the Skill, Will, or Hill Framework

When something goes wrong at work, training is often one of the first solutions offered.

A file has errors, so someone needs more training. A resident interaction does not go well, so the team needs more training. A process is not being followed consistently, so the assumption is that people must not know what to do.

And sometimes, that is true.

Training can absolutely be the right solution when someone lacks the knowledge, practice, or clarity needed to perform a task well. In affordable housing, where staff are balancing compliance requirements, resident needs, documentation standards, maintenance demands, and operational deadlines, there are plenty of situations where structured training can close a real gap.

But training is not a silver bullet, and if we treat every performance issue as a training issue, we run the risk of solving the wrong problem. Training works best when it is aimed at the right problem.

That distinction matters because when the wrong solution is applied, the original issue continues. Employees become frustrated, managers lose confidence in the intervention, and good training may be labeled as ineffective because the real barrier was never a training issue to begin with.

That is where the Skill, Will, or Hill framework can help. It gives managers and leaders a simple way to pause before jumping to a solution and ask a better question: What is actually getting in the way of performance?

Skill: When Someone Does Not Know How

Skill is the most obvious training issue because it is the “can’t do” category. The employee does not yet have the knowledge, practice, confidence, or clarity needed to complete the task correctly. Maybe they are new to affordable housing, new to the organization, or new to a specific role. Maybe they have experience, but not with your programs, your systems, your forms, or your expectations.

In these situations, training is often the right solution.

If someone does not know how to calculate income correctly, complete a file review, triage a maintenance request, respond to a Fair Housing question, or follow a unit-turn process, the organization should not rely on guesswork, shadowing alone, or repeated verbal explanations. Staff need a clear foundation, and that foundation should be repeatable, accessible, and aligned to the work they actually do.

This is where structured training, job aids, checklists, practice opportunities, and feedback can make an immediate difference. The key is to make sure the training is specific enough to be useful. A general reminder to “be more careful” is not training. A long policy manual that no one knows how to apply is not enough on its own. A one-time explanation during a hectic day may help in the moment, but it does not create a reliable system.

If the issue is Skill, the solution should help the employee answer a few basic questions:

What am I supposed to do?

Why does it matter?

What steps should I follow?

What does good performance look like?

Where can I go when I need a reminder?

When those answers are clear, employees are more likely to gain confidence, managers are less likely to reteach the same topic repeatedly, and the organization is less dependent on whoever happens to be available when the question comes up.

Will: When Expectations, Motivation, or Incentives Are Misaligned

Will is different.

This is often described as the “won’t do” or “does not see the value” category, but I think it is important to be careful with that label because it can make the issue sound like an employee attitude problem. Sometimes that may be true, but often the situation is more complicated.

The employee may know what to do, but something about the expectation, motivation, accountability, or incentive is unclear or misaligned. Maybe the standard has not been communicated clearly. Maybe the employee has never received meaningful feedback. Maybe they do not understand why a process matters. Maybe they have seen others skip the same steps without consequence. Or, in some cases, maybe the organization’s own policies, rewards, or tracked metrics are unintentionally encouraging the wrong behavior.

Consider a call center where employees are expected to keep calls under one minute. At face value, that may sound like a valid business goal because leaders want calls handled quickly and customers served efficiently. However, if the metric is tracked in a way that rewards speed over resolution, employees may learn to transfer calls as the one-minute mark approaches rather than staying on the line to fully resolve the issue.

In that situation, the employee may know the correct process, and they may even want to help the customer, but the system is rewarding a different behavior.

Training cannot consistently overcome a system that rewards the opposite behavior.

Assigning more training on customer service or call resolution will probably not change the outcome because the training is competing against the incentive structure. The employee is being told one thing in training but rewarded for doing something else in practice.

That is a Will issue, but not necessarily because the employee lacks motivation. The issue may be that the organization has not aligned expectations, coaching, metrics, and rewards around the behavior it actually wants.

In reality, Will and Hill are not always cleanly separated. Metrics, incentives, policies, and rewards are environmental factors, but they can directly shape the choices employees make. If the system makes it easier to transfer the call, skip the step, avoid the difficult conversation, or prioritize speed over accuracy, then employee behavior may look like a Will issue on the surface while being heavily influenced by a Hill.

That does not mean training has no role. Once the environmental issue is corrected, training may be needed to reset expectations, explain the change, and help employees adjust to the new process. In that case, training becomes part of change management, not the entire solution by itself.

This distinction matters because misdiagnosing the issue can create a second problem: effective training may be labeled as ineffective.

If a training team builds a strong course, deploys it well, and reinforces the correct process, but the organization continues to track or reward behavior that works against the training, the post-training results may not improve. From the outside, it may look like the training failed. In reality, the training may have addressed the knowledge gap, while the underlying performance barrier remained untouched.

That can make it harder to earn future buy-in from managers and leaders because they may conclude that training “does not work,” when the better conclusion is that training was asked to solve a problem outside its lane.

If the employee already knows the process but does not consistently follow it, leaders may need to focus on expectations, coaching, recognition, accountability, and alignment. Training can support the message, but it cannot carry the entire solution by itself.

Training is often the default fix for performance problems, but it only works when aimed at the right one. Skill, Will, or Hill sorts the cause: Skill is "can't do" — real knowledge gaps, where structured training helps. Will is misaligned expectations, feedback, or incentives; training loses to a metric that rewards the opposite. Hill is an environment that blocks execution — access, process, workload. Diagnose first, then train, coach, or remove roadblocks. When The Environment Makes Success Harder Than it Should Be

Hill may be the most overlooked category because it is the “hard to do here” problem. The employee may know what to do and may want to do it, but the environment gets in the way.

Maybe they do not have access to the right system. Maybe the process has too many unnecessary steps. Maybe the instructions are stored in five different places. Maybe staffing levels make it difficult to follow the process consistently. Maybe a policy says one thing, but the workflow pushes people toward something else. Maybe employees are expected to meet a standard without the tools, time, or support needed to meet it.

Training cannot overcome a locked door.

If the problem is access, a course will not fix it. If the process is broken, a refresher will not make it easier. If the workload is unrealistic, reminding people of the expectation may only increase frustration. If the right answer is buried in a shared drive no one can navigate, telling staff to “look it up” is not the same as providing support.

Hill issues require leaders to remove roadblocks. That may mean simplifying a process, clarifying ownership, improving access to systems, updating outdated resources, aligning staffing, or making the right action easier to complete. In some cases, the solution may be as simple as creating a central place for key resources. In others, it may require deeper operational changes.

This is an important distinction because employees can become disengaged when they are trained repeatedly on something they cannot reasonably execute. If staff are saying, “I know what I am supposed to do, but it is hard to do it here,” leaders should listen carefully.

That statement usually points to a Hill.

Start with diagnosis before assigning the solution

The value of Skill, Will, or Hill is that it slows down the response just enough to prevent the wrong solution from being applied. Before assigning more training, ask:

Do they know how to do the task?

Do they understand the expectation and why it matters?

Are the right behaviors being reinforced, measured, and rewarded?

Do they have the tools, access, time, and process needed to do it correctly?

It is also worth asking whether the organization has made the desired behavior easier or harder to perform, because employees often respond to the system around them even when the stated expectation says something different.

If the answer is no to the first question, training is likely part of the solution. If the answer is no to the second or third, coaching, clarity, accountability, recognition, or better alignment may be needed. If the answer is no to the fourth, the issue may be environmental, and leaders may need to remove barriers before expecting performance to improve.

This does not mean the categories are always perfectly separate because real workplace issues often include a little of each. A new employee may need training, clearer expectations, and better access to resources. A struggling team may need updated procedures, manager reinforcement, and a more consistent onboarding path.

But the framework still helps because it prevents training from becoming the default answer to every problem.

The goal is not to assign more training every time something goes wrong. The goal is to understand what is getting in the way of performance and provide the right kind of support.

Where AHTA Can Help

AHTA can be especially useful when the issue is Skill because it gives organizations a structured way to provide affordable housing training that is consistent, accessible, and trackable. It can help employees build foundational knowledge, support role-based learning, and give managers more visibility into what training has been assigned and completed.

It can also support Will by helping organizations frame training as development rather than punishment. When training is assigned as part of onboarding, upskilling, career growth, or role preparation, it reinforces the idea that learning is part of the employee experience, not just a response to mistakes.

And while AHTA cannot remove every Hill, it can help organizations identify where the hills may be. If staff complete training but continue to struggle with the same process, that may be a signal that the issue is not only knowledge. It may be time to look at the workflow, the tools, the expectations, or the resources available to the team.

That is where training becomes more than content. It becomes part of a broader performance conversation.

Final Thought

Training is important, but it works best when it is aimed at the right problem.

If employees do not know how to do something, train them. If they do not understand the expectation or value, coach them. If the environment makes success harder than it should be, remove the roadblocks.

When we skip that diagnosis, we risk applying the most familiar solution instead of the right one. We send someone back through training when the process is unclear. We coach harder when the metric rewards the wrong behavior. We remind people of expectations when they do not have the tools, access, time, or support to meet them.

The wrong solution can create the appearance of action without creating meaningful change. It may check a box, satisfy a short-term concern, or make it look like the issue has been addressed, but if the real barrier remains, the same problem will likely show up again.

That is frustrating for employees, ineffective for managers, and unfair to the training itself.

Skill, Will, or Hill helps leaders pause long enough to ask what kind of support the situation actually requires.

The next time a performance issue occurs, take that pause. Determine whether the gap is knowledge, expectation, motivation, incentives, process, access, or environment, and then choose the support that actually fits the problem.