Competence management

Competence management , also called skill management, has the task of describing employee competencies, making them transparent and ensuring the transfer, use and development of competencies with regard to strategic corporate goals.

Basics

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

The aim of competence management in the company is to effectively use the potential that every company has based on existing employee skills and abilities and, based on this, to develop the competencies necessary for sustainable competitiveness, i. H. to actively control and direct one's own competence base.

Competence management combines two fundamental approaches in organizational sciences, which also play a role here: the resource-based approach or core competence approach and the learning-oriented competence approach . Both approaches are relevant for the application of competence management.

Resource-oriented approach

The resource-oriented approach - also known as the core competence approach - is fundamentally concerned with the use of potential of an organization, with the aim of securing the long-term viability of a company through the correct accumulation of resources and thereby differentiating itself from the market environment.

Learning-oriented approach

In contrast, the learning-oriented competence approach focuses on the individual as a competence carrier. Competencies are characterized as prerequisites for self-management.

Competency management tasks

As a core task of knowledge-oriented corporate management, competence management goes beyond the traditional understanding of training and further education by integrating learning, self-organization, use and marketing of competencies. Competence management also includes the tasks of describing and documenting competencies (e.g. in the context of human capital accounting ) as well as ensuring the transfer, use and development of competencies, based on the personal goals of the employee and the goals of the company.

In particular, there are four tasks:

1. Representation: Structured and condensed overview of competencies at employee and company level with the targeted result of a structured qualitative and quantitative analysis of the competency portfolio. The measurement and display methods developed or proposed in this context are, however, often incomplete, since in the end it is primarily the individual who can make statements about his or her professional skills, but is rarely asked about it, or is controversial among experts.
2. Reflection: Critical questioning of the competency stocks and derivation of operational interventions for improvement with the targeted result of a targeted inventory and assessment of competencies. This includes B. the gap analysis.
3. Distribution: Distribution and dissemination of competencies across the different levels of the organization (project, process, control level) with the targeted result of a high availability of the competency portfolio. The transition to knowledge management is fluid.
4. Development: Adaptation of the competence portfolio taking into account the existing potential and the future requirements (development or dismantling). This also includes a risk analysis in which the company, department or subject-specific risks of the migration of important skills or their obsolescence are determined and countermeasures are suggested.

Model of an integrative competence management

The implementation of a competence management in the company can be realized according to a procedure model developed by North and Reinhardt (2005). The model is based on the basic idea that both the employee himself and the company can control, adapt and develop the aggregated organizational competence portfolio. A synchronization of both interests is an important element of this model. Due to the modular structure of the model, the practitioner should be able to adapt the model to the conditions of his company. The procedure can be broken down into the phases identification, validation and transfer. However, so far there are no examples of a complete implementation of this theoretical program.

Identification phase

Starting with the analysis, the strategically important business areas and the associated company competencies are systematically examined and identified. The model provides that selected value-added processes, business processes, products, services, projects and technologies are examined with regard to business-relevant fields of competence. Based on this knowledge, a strategic target direction for the competence management is determined (e.g. initiation of competence-oriented further training; re-establishment of the corporate competence XY etc.). The results of the analysis are used to derive the individual competencies that are relevant for the organization-dependent tasks of the employees (task catalog). Roles are derived from this catalog (role catalog). A clear target competency profile is created for each role, which is broken down into technical, methodological and social components (drill-down). In a competency catalog, task and role-related competencies are aggregated and structured according to core business areas.

Validation phase

In the validation phase, the actual competencies of the employees are queried using the target competency catalog. This survey can be either analogue or digital. Companies can concentrate on strategically important groups of employees (e.g. research and development, IT employees). The level of competence, i.e. the characteristics of the individual competencies, are recorded on a previously defined expertise scale and thus made measurable. In order to achieve a differentiated assessment, an assessment can also be made according to the competence domain. In workshops with employee groups, in one-on-one discussions with the supervisor and / or through self-assessment by the employees, the competence profiles are checked for validity and, if necessary, changed. The result is an overview of who, where in the company has which competencies individually (employee ↔ competence profile) or as a whole (group ↔ competence card). Various visualization techniques provide support in reflecting on and analyzing the results, which reproduce the data in a compressed form and make decisions easier.

Transfer phase

Building on the transparency of the competency inventory, the transfer of competencies between employees can be designed very precisely, depending on the demand and supply of competencies in the company. Previously isolated competencies are transparent throughout the organization and can be networked. Suitable technical solutions support the dynamic or periodic updating and distribution of the competence information. By tracking the networking patterns between employees, an organization-wide diagnosis of learning and competence patterns can be made. When used as a control instrument, the company management can use the results of the competence progression pattern as a basis for improving competence management and the specific adaptation of the networking concept. By scaling down the model with a key figure system adapted to the company, permanent controlling and active shaping of the competency inventory is possible.

See also

• Boreout Syndrome
• e-skills
• Lead from below
• Human capital
• Personnel development

literature

• T. Gröne, M. Beyer, J. Clemenz, A. Eberhardt, M. Ostermaier: Efficient competence management in companies - results of a study by the Institute for European Economic Studies IEWS. ibidem, Stuttgart: 2004, ISBN 3-89821-400-1
• Klaus North, Kai Reinhardt: Competence Management in Practice - Systematically Identifying, Using and Developing Employee Competencies . With many case studies. Gabler, 2005
• M. Schenk, K. Reinhardt: Study: Company Competence Management: Opportunities and Challenges for Practice . Fraunhofer IFF, Magdeburg 2003
• M. Schenk, H.-G. Schnauffer, S. Voigt: Competence management - expert survey shows: There is often a gap between demands and implementation . In: Personalmanager , No. 1, 2005, pp. 19–21.
• M. Schenk, H.-G. Schnauffer, M. Staiger: Integrated Competence Management - Model and Procedure. In: Personalmanager , No. 2, 2005, pp. 38–39.
• M. Staiger, S. Voigt, H.-G. Schnauffer, J. Albrecht: Integrated Competence Management - Model, Success Factors and Procedure for Implementation . Knowtech 2005.
• John Erpenbeck , Lutz von Rosenstiel : Handbook of Competence Measurement , 2007
• Volker Heyse, John Erpenbeck : Competence Management. Methods, procedures . Waxmann 2007
• Volker Heyse, John Erpenbeck, Stefan Ortmann: Basic structures of human competencies . Waxmann 2010

Individual evidence

1. ^ E. Barthel, JP Hasebrook, O. Zawacki-Richter: Competence balance sheets and competence capital . In: Balance competencies. Edition QUEM, Münster 2006, pp. 109–220.