Competence

Competencies are the sum of the knowledge, skills, experience and attitudes of the people who work for you or could work for you. This aggregate also directly affects employee performance and job success. The key is to be clear about what specific behaviours lead to the performance you expect from people and to be able to describe them in a clear and specific way.

The competency model is a practical tool that contains a list of key competencies for each position in the company. It helps to analyse the necessary competences and define clear criteria for development.

What is competency-based management and why is it needed?

The model links the organisation’s strategy and HR agenda, or explains that one cannot function sustainably without the other. In order to achieve the vision, it is necessary to know which skills and behaviours lead to its fulfilment, and with this knowledge, to select, evaluate and plan their development.

If management really wants to manage people in the company strategically (meaningfully), it is necessary to deal not only with the performance component, but also with the competence component. The reason for this is to achieve the highest possible performance in the most efficient way in the long term and sustainably, which is exactly what is needed to maximise the competence level of the workforce.

In this way, it will be possible both to align the expectations of employees and the company as to whether they can handle the role and to ensure better use and management of human potential development so that the performance of the organisation is optimised as a whole.

What are some of the real benefits of competency models?

There are a number of areas that are impacted by the use of competency models. We select those that we take from practice as the most important:

• removing ambiguity and duplication of competence requirements for individual roles in the company.
• reducing time-consuming data evaluation for education management.
• Accelerated achievement of the required competency requirements for the positions.
• A major reduction in inefficient staff training costs.
• Effective evaluation of the impact of training on the development of individuals and groups.
• increase the probability of extending the effective life cycle phase of an employee.

How to get started with competency-based management?

Skills development (competencies) must be closely linked to the company’s strategy and processes in order for its use to make sense. Unless a company’s strategy is written down to the lowest levels of the organization, competency-based management will probably never be adopted organization-wide.

It is also very useful to choose the right tool to help you prepare and run the competency model. HR system Sloneek is well prepared for these challenges.

In the application, you will find a module specifically dedicated to competencies, thanks to which you can easily build and evaluate individual competency reports for your people. And if you’re still struggling with your preparation, you can take advantage of an AI assistant to suggest the most suitable model for your specific job.