The need for a competency

management solution

March | 2013

Due to an ageing workforce and significant investment in capital equipment and new technologies, the energy and utilities sector has witnessed a sharp increase in the need for various competencies and new talents in the area of human resources. At the same time, the many hazardous incidents that have occurred in this sector in the recent past have highlighted the urgent need for greater scrutiny of competencies and regulatory compliance in managing the risks during job performance.

However, most companies today rarely have the relevant metrics pertaining to their employees' competencies as required to perform their jobs efficiently and safely. They do not have a way to identify correct competencies and provide accurate analysis about their workforce. Organizations have no way to determine what information is relevant to a particular job at a particular time in a particular environment and to evaluate concrete evidence that demonstrates competence. In such a situation, competency assessment is eventually carried out on the basis of static generalities derived from summaries of qualification and certifications rather than individual competency and evidences. This approach leads to inaccurate conclusions which appear to be valid in a particular context but can be easily misinterpreted when viewed from a cross functional perspective in an organization. Some challenges accruing from this include:

Inexperienced decisions by an employee or contractor can seriously damage a well-established business
Due to the gaps in the key positions and core skills required, the proficiency of an individual gets affected, thereby reducing the efficiency of the workforce
It is difficult to identify which employee needs which type of training, thus increasing the cost in giving irrelevant training to the employees and in wastage of time
Due to lack of competencies in employees, there is a loss of employee fitment within the company and this leads to dependency on contractors and increased costs

To address these problems, companies need a standards-based Competency Management system. This system must provide the functionality that enables taxonomies of competencies to be mapped across organizations or organizational units, training to be mapped to competencies on the basis of multiple factors including the actual content used in the training, and employee skill gaps to be recognized and remediated using available training interventions. In addition, organizations need a technology that is able to objectively analyze and map the competency models using a standard taxonomy, and which reduces risk by providing the organization with accurate mapping of people to jobs and competencies.

Implementing a Competency Risk Management Framework sets a strong foundation for the employees' Health, Safety, Security and Environmental (HSSE) related practices at the organization level and extended enterprise aligning the critical talent processes to enable smooth business operations. Competency assessment, mapping and management ultimately lead to change management that can transition the individual, the team and the organization from the current state to the desired future state. Do you agree?

About the Author

Suvrat Mathur has 12+ experience in consulting, solution design and delivery of Talent Management product implementations for large global clients.

Suvrat has successfully led global transformation projects for customer?s technology implementations in the HCM space including Competency Risk Management Solution, Performance Management, Succession Planning, and eLearning technology. He has pioneered customer value orientation solving complex business problems for customers in US, Australia & India. As part of the Competency Risk Management Services at Wipro, Suvrat has been leading the technology deployments and providing functional domain expertise in solution development for global customers in Oil & Gas industry. He specializes in business process architecture and solution designing translating customer business problem into sustainable technical solutions.

Suvrat holds a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science.

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