Competence-Based Training & Development

Successful organizations today are moving from a 'personnel' focus toward a proactive style of HR management in order to add value to the company.

To accomplish this strategic shift, managers, consultants and line personnel need to start focusing on the links between the various functions within the company.

Focusing on these links is important because of the challenges organizations are facing in today's global environment. Some of the most critical challenges include aging workforces, shortages of skilled workers, technological advancements and increasing global competition. Of course, within the region, Nationalization efforts present additional challenges, as we focus on sharing and transferring knowledge from our skilled workforce to new national employees!

How can a company overcome these challenges? Using effective human resource management principles is a good way to start! To accomplish this task we need to design a system that integrates these 'various puzzle pieces' such as, career planning, staffing, employee development, succession planning, appraising the workforce, compensation administration, and employee relations. Failure to 'build that puzzle' results in tackling problems in isolation and this can lead to a workforce that often performs below their fullest potential.

Putting the puzzle together is even more critical when Nationalization efforts are considered! Before a company can make progress in its goal of developing and preparing new national employees to assume positions within the organization it must understand the link of between strategic manpower planning and other HR processes, such as, recruiting and selection. Successful nationalization programs will need to be based on current and future job requirements, providing the right level of compensation, benefits, and incentives that will help attract and sustain dedicated and motivated national employees.

And why is this shift toward a proactive approach so important? Because if a company fails to react to the sweeping changes taking place around the world today there is a good chance their business will fail. Staying in business means an organization must continually provide a service or product, at an acceptable cost, that fits the needs of its customers!

In order to accomplish this goal we must ensure that we have employees who can safely, effectively and efficiently perform their assigned jobs. And of course that leads us to the original purpose of the article, competence-based training and development, because people are one of an organization's most valuable assets. By having a well designed competence-based training and development program the organization will be able to ensure it has the right people, with the right skills, at the right time, to accomplish their business objectives.

But what is competence? Competence is often defined as a combination of awareness, skills, knowledge and attitude that enables an individual to perform a job to the standards required for successful job performance. In other words, competence deals with 'what is expected in the workplace' with the emphasis on performing an actual job and not gaining knowledge or skills for their own sake.

This means that a competence-based program needs to focus on building the knowledge and skills needed in a particular job. Competence-based programs are also used to increase employees' current job performance, prepare them for changing job requirements or introduce new tools or technology in the work place. Since these 'competencies' are derived from actual job requirements, the role of line managers is critical to the creation and implementation of the program.

In addition, when line personnel are involved with the identification and verification of skill requirements they become partners in the competency development process.

The first step in the process is for HR personnel to partner with line supervisors so that the actual job requirements can be identified (which frequently differ from the official job descriptions). This first step cannot be rushed because all the following efforts are based on measuring what your workforce is capable of and then designing and implementing activities to close the gap of what they need to do! Here are a few questions to get the process started:


• What is the primary focus of this job?

• How many tasks are involved?

• Why are these tasks required?

• Where do these actions take place?

• When are the tasks performed?

• What is the frequency of each task?

• What is the importance of each task?

• When do the tasks need to be performed?

Line personnel, in conjunction with HR personnel, must accurately describe what the trainee needs to know, do, and what attitudes are needed to perform their job functions. Before answering each of the questions you'll need to remember to ensure the answers are clear, accurate and understandable to anyone reviewing the response. In addition, the tasks identified must describe specific performance and they need to be measurable otherwise you'll never be able to determine if the employee has successfully met the competence requirements.

Finally, there are six rules to keep in mind when creating and implementing any competence-based training & development activities. These rules primarily focus on training and development efforts that are conducted on-the-job (OJT) but a proactive Training Department will ensure that external training providers also follow the basic concepts so that the maximum benefit is obtained from the external training activities.

1. Real competence-based training is designed to teach employees the skills they will use to solve day-to-day job requirements. The best way to accomplish this is to use problem-solving and demonstration-performance methods when providing on-the-job training.

2. All competence-based training and development efforts should be designed so that employees are active participants during the training process -- if training is not properly designed or delivered correctly the employees observe the process but don't gain the full benefit that total involvement brings.

3. An employee's interest is stimulated and training is more successful when competence-based training and development program objectives are clearly understood and results of the training can be easily defined. This can be accomplished by using actual equipment, real work-place samples and by providing solutions that the employee can use to accomplish their actual job requirements.

4. Design competence-based training exercises that require active employee involvement because people remember things they see and do more readily than things they only read about. In addition, try to use group-training exercises because training can be more enjoyable when more than one trainee is involved. Group training sessions allow the trainees to share each other's experiences and insight.

5. Well-designed and delivered competence-based training and development exercises are useless unless the employees are allowed and encouraged to put their training to use while performing their actual jobs.

6. Finally, the most important success factor with competence-based training and development is that the learning environment must be supportive and positive. Employees that feel comfortable and not threatened will freely express their ideas and ask for help when they need it!