Bobbie King, Chief Executive Officer at SQEPtech, outlines the concept of competency and the importance of collaboration between teams
Competency and how it is handled by organisations is a huge concern for managers. Workforce competence is crucial for managing risks and avoiding potential disasters, as well as making sure that customers receive excellent service (and we all know that the customer comes first).
While many professions have competency frameworks in place (think healthcare, policing, and fire and rescue) in other cases, these frameworks cover scenarios within specific sectors.
For example, the recently published PAS built environment competency frameworks address the competence of those who provide services and products into the built environment, covering aspects of building safety criteria.
The whys and whats of competency
So, what exactly is competence? How can you manage and understand the level of competency within your workforce? How can you ensure your employees are fully competent for their roles? And how can you demonstrate this to regulators and stakeholders?
I know it’s not always an easy concept to get your head around, but I like to think of competency as the way in which individuals combine their knowledge, training, skills, experience, and behaviour when performing a work-related activity.
Because competency encompasses these four key elements, it often (incorrectly) falls in the lap of Learning & Development when really it should be the remit of Operations.
Assessing competence: whose job is it anyway?
Competency assessments are carried out in the application of skills in a context, using real or simulated scenarios. Operations staff have a deep understanding of what it takes to be a competent professional in their field. They’ve also got the expertise to assess whether an employee is competent or not.
Unless Operations are brought into the equation early on, then L&D staff may well resort to measuring competency by length of service and this is a very poor proxy indeed. This is seen time and time again.
Granted, L&D departments hold a huge amount of data in their learning and performance management systems (we’re talking performance reviews and training records etc.). This can be useful in supporting competency assessments.
However, it’s never going to work as a single-pronged approach. Competency management and assurance only succeed when L&D and Operations departments work in tandem.
As Figure 1 shows, training courses, academic learning and keeping up to date with industry and regulatory updates, are all just one element of competency. And not all of these will be organised or managed by L&D teams.
There are also three other building blocks to consider – on-the-job learning, learning from others, and reflective learning. In my opinion, managing and assuring competency requires all three of these.
While L&D staff might organise courses and hold training records, they’re never going to be the ones making sure employees are kept up to speed on specific technical, industry, regulatory or technology changes.
Instead, developing and deepening competence will come from a variety of sources such as relevant professional bodies, communities of practice, publications, mentoring and conferences. Not to forget reflecting on how you did an activity and whether you may do it differently next time.
For these reasons, it’s often assumed that competency management and assurance will take place as part of a training or performance process, rather than something that requires its own process.
But don’t make this mistake. By treating competency management merely as an aspect of training or performance, you might struggle to show stakeholders that your employees are competent.
Practicing makes perfect
To add to an already complex scenario, competency also comes with other important dimensions. Time and practice can seriously affect an individual’s ability to competently apply their knowledge and skills.
I always think it’s a bit like learning to ride a bike. If you’ve not cycled for a while, you might well be a bit wobbly at first, but that’s ok. The wobbling indicates that although you do know how to ride, your balance techniques are a little rusty and must be relearnt.
Forgetting something you’ve previously learnt (mastered, even) like riding a bike, is down to your transient memory, and this is explained brilliantly in Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve.
Conversely, the Experience Curve (aka Henderson’s Law) helps build up and maintain competency levels, but of course, like everything, there’s a catch.
For the experience curve to really work you must keep practicing and applying your learning (see the ‘on-the-job learning’ and ‘reflective learning’ blocks, Figure 1). Take a break from applying the learning and just like riding a bike, you’ll ‘wobble’ as you bring your competency back up to scratch.
HRBPs and Operations Managers should work together
So how can managers and HRBPs really understand what the competency map of their organisation looks like, and be assured that their people have the right skills, at the right level, for their specific roles?
The answer’s simple and involves HR and Operations Managers working together to define roles which include qualifications, training, skills, and level of competencies.
By having an HRIS ecosystem that includes learning management, auditable competency management, and assurance, you’re supporting the overall business process.
Working together, HRBPs and Operations Managers can take the lead in reducing competency-related risks for their organisations.
References
- Lindsay, H. (2016) ‘More than ‘continuing professional development: a proposed new learning framework for professional accountants’, Accounting Education, 25:1, 1-13,
DOI: 10.1080/09639284.2015.1104641
