Maestro Technologies - Intelligent management software for the construction industry.

Competency management

The "Office québécois de la langue française" gives a basic definition for the expression "competency management" that will serve as the starting point for a more in-depth analysis. Competency management is a "management model that puts competency at the heart of activities aimed to ensure the future of the company by determining the key competencies of employees and facilitating their development".

Our attention is drawn to several phrases in this statement: management model, ensuring the future of the company, determining the key competencies, employee development. This is fundamental and should serve as a guide to other sectors of the company. It is easy to understand that competency management is one of the elements that ensures the future of a company. By making it possible to identify key elements that are differentiated by their specific or superior competency and, in the same spirit, by identifying the shortcomings of other people, we can implement a specific training plan or recognize that others are perhaps not indispensable elements within the company. Finally, since this type of plan works on individuals, or elements that form the base of all other processes, competency management should hold a strategic place in any plans to improve the operational processes of a company.

Companies whose employment numbers vary according to the project at hand are particularly affected by this approach. When it becomes necessary to fill a large number of positions with specific qualifications in a given region and you only have a short amount of time, it is crucial to choose the best resources from among those available. This can easily become a headache if the search must be done manually as the number of factors that must be taken into consideration can be enormous. Choices might be made without taking all the parameters into account and you can just imagine the consequences.

The French "WebCompetence" site provides a pragmatic view of this type of management: "Competency management consists of ensuring that the resources (humans) are always at the level of the company’s requirements to meet current and future expectations on its markets (quantitatively by employees, and qualitatively by competencies). It consists of identifying existing or potential gaps (management planning or GPEC) between requirements and resources, collectively (for the entire organization, or for an employee category) and individually, and to implement the appropriate actions (recruitment, mobility, training, organizational changes, adjustments to work times, actions that affect employees) to fill the gaps".

This approach is distinguished by the link between the requirements of the company and the expectations of its markets. This concept is fundamental to ensure the long-term future of a company working in evolving markets. A given competency may be a major asset at this time, but might be worth nothing five years from now. If the individuals who master this competency have not evolved or received the additional training necessary, they can quickly become obsolete, even if they currently hold a position that is the essential to the company’s operations.

To summarize, by having a good approach to managing competencies, we expect to have the right people with the required qualifications in the right positions. We also have tools on hand that let us identify individuals who have the necessary qualifications to fill current and future requirements. Finally, we can foresee the training requirements for each person to ensure that the competencies of our resources remain up-to-date.

We can fairly safely confirm that few SMEs attach the importance to competency management that it deserves. Particularly during times of economic uncertainty and labour shortages in certain fields, this topic should be at the top of the list of elements we should take into consideration as part of efficient operations management.