The fast pace of technological change haunts organizations by creating gaps in competency management across all industries. Companies cultivate competencies over time, but new demands emerge, mixing up the equation of skills and knowledge. This results in gaps that confuse managers and employees.
- Do I have the necessary competencies?
- Do I need to learn new skills?
- Which knowledge areas need an update?
The main idea is that companies are not tailoring competency management to emerging technologies, in which case, managers tend to lose focus.
The focus should not be on looking for new and emerging competencies, but rather on the core business solution. Emerging competencies will only be necessary if there is success now. In other words, management of competencies should first focus on the core.
Consumers are looking for a perfect core solution, rather than great customer service and innovative features built around a crooked solution. Misalignment between competency management model and the business model can be disastrous.
First, the competency management model must meet the expectations and needs of the core solution. This lack of clarity may be an Achilles’ heel, causing leaders to ignore the positioning or readjustments desired by the company.
In some situations, competencies exist but are not directed to the organization’s core. In short, the core should come before competency management and not the other way around.
Okay, so what strategies can be adopted? Use concepts that produce thinkers engaged with changes, such as:
Complex problem-solving
Motivate the habit of studying while working with a focus on solving problems related to your responsibilities. This managerial attitude/initiative solves 2 constant problems within a competency management model: discipline and prioritization.
Of course, there are many other factors involved in this issue; however, these problems are inherent to current and future competencies. In a long journey, it is typical to make choices and reconcile activities while dealing with complex demands.
Critical thinking
Many professionals find it difficult to express themselves clearly and recognize problems from different perspectives. The focus here is on increasing the employees’ ability to recognize essential points in daily paradigms.
Delegate responsibilities to employees to make changes that are necessary for connecting with other points of view. Create habits that redesign the search for “connected success” between departments.
Involve different collaborators to participate in the criticism issues regarding the equation of results and complex decisions. The best way to learn is by deconstructing business processes.
Yet keep your eye on the workflow and turnover of responsibilities so it doesn’t interfere with desired projects and goals.
Cognitive flexibility
Putting together a team that acts with a good understanding of the organization’s processes and goals is one thing. A team with advanced insights about internal (business) and external (market) rules is totally different.
Often this role is attributed to managers who have a broader view between strategies and articulated scenarios. These insights help systematize the combination of actions and limitations generated by current rules.
Like any other competency, engaging with other professionals is essential. Within this concept, it is worthwhile to generate multidisciplinary interactions that are not linked to the professional’s main activities.
Creating these meetings stimulates new breakthroughs and trends, in the same style as the Thinking Environment.
Leadership in competency management model
Gaps in competency management model can arise from a variety of motivational and organizational factors. A lack of interest from employees and little commitment by companies to create journeys of success are factors that directly influence the creation of gaps.
Competencies are usually mapped into HDM software to fulfill spots in specific areas or reallocate professionals. Understand how to exemplify the skill gaps in your system. Use assessments, tests and feedback to create indicators that demonstrate the relationship between gaps and the company’s strategies.
Create strategies that are capable of detailing whether gaps in technological know-how or in management issues. Then, assign leadership that complements these gaps in moments of action.
By doing this, with the help and support of leadership, the employees are motivated to trust in the impact that their actions have on the business. Making sure that benefits and risks are well-mapped and understood.
Strategies x journey
Competency strategies must have a journey, defining their implementation and management with the goal of meeting the strategic needs of the business. The journey should also take into account the current culture and available technologies to guide the modeling of future competencies.
Initially, managers must evaluate and certify that the employees’ database is detailed, consistent and coherent. Through a systematic and automated structure, the people development cycle allows the visualization of an individual competency evolution. This way it groups organizational principles, values and practices.
Organizations are unlikely to succeed without creating a journey that clearly contains the investments needed to build competency initiatives, including adequate budgeting information, alignment between competencies and business goals and usage of technologies.
Essential competencies
It is important that essential competencies provide companies with a framework in which they can identify their key strengths and, on top of this, develop strategies.
The identification and evaluation of key competencies should be done with the highest possible accuracy and reliability, so that investments in non-essential areas do not create gaps in the operation’s essential competency model.
Finally, it is important to take care so that an organizational structure is not built around many essential competencies, therefore avoiding situations of redundancy or scarcity.
