What are competencies? What is competency management?
Competencies are personal capabilities that are demonstrated through measurable knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal attributes, which can contribute to enhanced employee performance and, ultimately, to the individual’s and organization’s success. In a learning management system, competency management is the system’s ability to connect various competencies/skill sets, job roles, and learning events, to build employee training plans and monitor each individual’s learning progress.

How does competency management help your organization to develop training plans?
Competency management hierarchies let you define employee job roles that are specific, complete, and consistent across the affected organization. This allows you to certify that employees possess required skills or competencies, and that they qualify for their job roles. It also gives users clear, specific, easily followed paths to advancement. At any time, users can see what they still need to progress, request or access training that improves their skills, and stay on a clear training track centered on company needs. The company also benefits in improved employee retention.

Defined training plans also show employees how they can improve and gain new job skills. In this way, training becomes important to the employee, easily accessible, and necessary. This certification is also a path to promotion. If all necessary training is completed for a job role, the employee can print a certificate, and offer physical proof that they have completed all requirements for the role.

Many industries must also meet federal, or other, requirements (such as government regulations) that force them to require corresponding employee certifications. Employees must meet related competencies, and execute tasks and responsibilities in ways that support the company’s mandated performance. Tracking and managing the employee-certification process is critical to the success of these types of organizations.

Where does a training manager begin, given such laudable (but broad) business goals?
A good starting point is a survey. What job roles do people possess? How are these roles defined? What is common among the roles? What skills or competencies support each role? What learning events (courses, meetings, demonstrations, on-the-job training, etc.) support and build these competencies? How does a new hire begin their training? This may seem daunting, but defining existing job roles is worthwhile, and brings many insights into the company’s needs for competent performance. The data from such surveys also helps to build measurable ways to determine when employees attain needed skills, and conversely, may identify training needs that are not yet met.

Usually, a common set of competencies runs throughout most organizations, which comes from the human resources department. Most HR organizations require an orientation, which may include courses and handouts about time clocks, harassment, benefits, and other important company-wide topics. On top of these, most organizations have sales personnel that require both technical and sales training. And specific application roles, be they cooks, cleaners, or airplane mechanics, will need to attain both HR-required competencies and their own job-specific competencies. Food-service organizations, for example, may define food-related competencies for every job role, as well as non-food competencies for hosts, servers and maintenance/repair personnel.

How do you link learning events to certification requirements?
Learning events allow employees to gain competencies, and need to be defined, along with related recertification dates. It would be useless to have job roles that did not periodically require updating, as the business needs for these roles change. You may not want to specify recertification dates at first, but you will later need to identify and inform employees, who possess certain job roles, that they must meet new needs and requirements. Thinking through these tasks requires determination of business needs, so the training department must work with all other departments that require competent personnel, to gain insights into their important job roles, competencies, and learning events.

It’s not surprising that some organizations have no idea what “makes the job” in their business. Surveying successful, competent employees is usually the best way to analyze such situations. Communicating those results, and comparing them with the department head’s own ideas, may give you a great starting point. Good luck!

Source: SyberWorks, Inc

Sandy Huntress asked:


 

One of the reasons that I like being organized is that I hate to waste time, money or energy.  Also, I can’t bear that nasty sensation in the pit of my stomach when I realize that because I wasn’t prepared for it, an opportunity just passed me by. 

 

In recent years I’ve discovered the joys of having my own vegetable garden.  It’s a great feeling to wander out the back door and pick your own salad or herbs to go with dinner.  The price is right and the flavor can’t be beat!  But, I’ve learned that in order to take full advantage of this opportunity, I HAVE to be organized.

 

I live in the Northeast, where our growing season is only from mid-May to the end of October (early November if we’re lucky.)  I would prefer to start as much as possible from seed, because the savings and variety available are so much better. Some lessons I’ve learned over the years:

 

¨      If I don’t plan carefully, my plants will either be too small to go out at the ideal time (or they’ll be overgrown) and I’ll have to pay significantly more to buy them at the garden shop (or do without.)

¨      If I don’t spread my fertilizer early enough, then it will be too strong and damage my plants. 

¨       Planting cover crops way back in the fall will go a long way towards a better crop next season.

¨      Also, if I wait too long to buy manure, there won’t be any left.  (Cuz all the other gardeners beat me to it!)

¨      If I don’t plan & plot out my gardens beds, I won’t be able to make the most efficient use of my space.

 

Now, you may not be the least bit interested in gardening, and that’s fine, but consider for a minute some of the applications this has to other opportunities in life.

 

¨      It’s the dead of winter, and it feels like spring will never come, but you know it will eventually.  What do you have to do to be prepared? (Or for summer, or fall, or winter . . . you know what I mean.)

¨      Sure, you can sometimes manage to catch up if you procrastinate, but at what cost?

¨      What lessons did you learn from the last time around?  Have you made an effort to apply them and improve you system for this time?

¨      What tasks need to be done when for the best use of your time, money & energy?  Do you have a system in place to help remind you?

¨      What planning ahead do you need to do to make the most of any opportunities that may come your way?

 

Like I always say, organizing is not an end in and of itself, it’s a means to an end.  I hope considering these questions and their answers will help us all to make the most of the gifts we’ve been given.

 

Blessings,

 

Sandy 

 

P.S. I’ve also learned that plants don’t care how they’re organized.  They’ll grow whether the rows are straight, crooked or zig-zaggy.  One less thing to worry about! 



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