Advice and guidance for competence development
of employees and managers
Competency development has gained more focus over the last few decades in companies and organizations. Basically, competence development can be seen as the desire for individuals to have the right knowledge, competencies and skills to perform their work.
A desire that more companies are now focusing on in order to better manage a rapidly evolving world that requires, among other things, change-ready, agile and innovative companies. This requires employees and managers to be optimally prepared for the challenges and changes that are constantly happening in their company and the world around them.
The complexity of skills development
However, the complexity of competence development is quite extensive. Firstly, the concept of competence is a diverse concept that is perceived differently depending on the challenges and tasks you face in your everyday life. For some, competencies are specific skills, such as being able to handle functions in Microsoft Office or operate a specific machine. For others, competencies are transferable knowledge and systematics that can be used in a more general field, such as a teacher's ability to motivate students or a carpenter's ability to work with different types of wood.
Dealing with all of these circumstances can be time-consuming and extensive. In this article, we will therefore present different instances of a process that you can consider as needed. However, if you're about to start a major competence development process, it's a clear advantage to consider all of them.
Solving your HR challenges
The 2people system is developed by HR enthusiasts with many years of experience in HR.
We offer a standardized solution that easily can be customized and connected to what's most important to you.
We are ready to help with your HR needs and challenges.
Specifically define what competencies the employee needs to achieve and their purpose
An annoying way to waste resources is by not specifying exactly what competencies you want the employee to develop or acquire. This can mean that manager and employee misunderstand each other, and the skills the employee develops or acquires aren't the ones the manager hadn't intended or aren't used afterwards.
When an employee needs to develop or acquire new skills, make sure there is agreement on the purpose before and after the skills development process is initiated.
When specifying objectives, it's important to be as specific and transparent as possible.
As an employee, it can be difficult to develop if statements like "I want more structure" or "you can take more initiative" are the focal point of your development. However, it's important to talk about specific skills or knowledge that are desired and necessary for the employee to do their job.
Align expectations
When developing the purpose of the competencies, it's a good idea to think about what expectations you have of employees and what expectations employees can or will have of their manager.
Skills development can be a natural part of company or employee development, but they can also be linked to change. Regardless of the connection, it's important to align through dialog with employees. Your employees may not have the same ambitions as you, so it's important to engage in a dialog.
It's a good idea to combine this with the next step, framing the process, so that it's not just the expectations of what the employee can do when the process is complete and the desired competencies have been achieved. Instead, you should consider setting expectations for as many steps of the process as possible.
Some examples of expectations that need to be aligned could be: Should the employee be able to pass on their knowledge or work independently? Should the employee be trained or gain the skills on their own? Can the employee expect a salary increase, overtime pay, or are they putting in hours of interest?
Frame or map the process
As discussed at the beginning, competence development is a complex matter. From start to finish, there can be many steps or processes involved. It's therefore a good idea to frame and clarify the entire development process to make it more manageable and reduce misunderstandings.
Agree on what each step or objective entails, how they are achieved and what happens once they are achieved. Again, be as specific as possible to make the process and objectives visible.
If you have an intranet or HR system, the process should be located there so that both employee and manager can access and update the process. It's also possible for employees to have a constant overview and see what each step contains.
Solving your HR challenges
The 2people system is developed by HR enthusiasts with many years of experience in HR.
We offer a standardized solution that easily can be customized and connected to what's most important to you.
We are ready to help with your HR needs and challenges.
Make the necessary resources and equipment available
In order for an employee to be able to work on their development, it's important that they have access to the resources they need. After mapping the process, you should review with the employee whether the necessary resources are available.
For example, if the employee is going to training, do they have a laptop and transportation available? Is Office or another writing program available? What is the employee expected to provide and what is the company's responsibility?
Evaluation and follow-up
Once the employee or manager has achieved their goals, what happens next? All too often, a process or development is not followed up on and the new skills learned are not utilized. When one process ends, a new one should take over.
The new process, which can be new tasks or a new development, should ideally be aligned from the start so that the new processes and tasks don't come as a surprise.
For example, if an employee has been on management training or training for a new machine, the new process for the employee should be ready before the training is completed. Therefore, when starting the new process, a manager should follow up on the previous one. Is the employee ready for the new process or tasks? Was the outcome as expected? What can be done better?
It's rare that only one employee goes through the same process. Therefore, you should consider and collaborate on how the development process that the employee has undergone can be improved so that others can go through the same process faster and better.
Here, the employee's and manager's experiences are important, and by having noted and mapped the process, you can easily assess each step and correct them.