• competence
• competence development
• competence management

Introduction

The competence management has been identified to be one key factor of any organization`s success. There are no “one fits for all” systems to manage competences, but it would be important to understand what could be useful and possible for one’s own company. Therefore, companies need to find a model, which serves their needs and goals to develop their personnel’s competences (Viitala, R. 2005).

The lack of proper uniform competence management process, answering also for the future competence needs, was identified in the case company’s operations organization and therefore, the new competence management process was created and implemented into practice.

According to change management models, it is essential to ensure that the new way of doing things is institutionalized into common practices without moving back to old habits. According to Lewin’s change management model, an existing current situation needs at first unfreeze and only after that a change can occur. Then, the new way of doing things is necessary to freeze again and make the new behavior to stick (Lewin, K. 1947; Levasseur, R.1921).

Background

The case company is operating in a regulated industry area and is located in Finland but being as part of a bigger global corporation. It was identified that the latest strategy was not fully supported with the present competences and the implementation of the new strategy required a new structured competence management. In order to ensure the growth and to meet the future requirements, there was need to develop new uniform process for the competence management to support managers’ supervisory work.

Creation of the new competence management process

The new competence management process was outlined during a Kaizen event involving managers from operations. Kaizen is a Japanese term, meaning continuous improvement, and it is one of the most powerful lean tools, when the results are wanted to be achieved in a very short period of time, even in a few days. It is used for situations where some processes are wanted to be improved together with employees and managers (Karlöf, B. 2009; Liker, J. K. 2006).

New tools, OPS vision map for competences and OPS competence gap matrix, were created to support the new competence management process. In addition, these new competence management tools and processes were included into the existing HR-calendar supporting the utilization of the competence management process as part of the supervisory work. OPS vision map for competences is showing company’s focus areas derived from the vision and strategy and related competence needs within 1–2 and 3–5 years. The corresponding competence needs were reviewed against functions’ competence matrixes and those were collected into the new OPS competence gap matrix. This competence gap matrix shows in which function the competence gaps exist. Each initiative (topic) has its own row in competence gap matrix with nominated initiative owner. Each row contains a description of the needed competence and in what focus area it is related to. Key elements of the new competence management process (Viitala, R. 2005) can be seen from the picture 1.

The cross-functional discussions of the needed competences, between an initiative owner and a function´s manager, acts like a handshake with an agreement in what function to add the competence. The corresponding competence needs are marked as red (= gap) in the OPS competence gap matrix. After a function’s manager is planned the improvement of the new competence, for example by training, in one’s own function competence matrix, the corresponding gap is marked as yellow (=planned). After the needed competences are achieved in the function, the corresponding gap will be marked as green (=competence ready) in OPS competence gap matrix and the row can be removed.

Implementation and maintenance

The new process was trained and implemented into practice. The process owner of the competence management process ensures that the new process is followed, and the OPS vision map and competence gap matrix are reviewed regularly. The success of the new process was followed by a metric describing how much of the competences were identified and planned into functions’ competence matrixes. As a result, after three (3) months, 52 % of the competence gaps were closed or planned as the target was 30 % and after six (6) months, already 60 % of the gaps were closed or planned as having the target of 50 %.

It needs to be acknowledged, that the OPS competence gap matrix is a living document. In addition, there will not be a situation when all the competence gaps are closed. If all gaps would be closed, it would indicate that the development is stopped.

Managers` experiences

Managers felt that the new competence management process and its new tools clarified and made the future competence needs more visible and thus helped the development planning of employees and teams. Both managers and responsible persons of the initiatives are willing to proactively be prepared for the future. Although sometimes it is not possible to plan a needed competence to the function’s competence matrix. In those cases, it is felt that there is still a need for a clarification of the decision and prioritization process. Even if the practical prioritization is not always that clear, still the competence gap matrix visualizes the competence and resource situation well acting as a supporting tool in the prioritization discussions. As another challenge, it was raised that the descriptions of initiatives and needed competences in the competence gap matrix are often at different levels, and often such competence needs, which are not required in the near future, may be described at too general level resulting that it is not even possible to identify them in practice and develop for functions. Furthermore, it was noticed that the OPS vision map needs to be reviewed more often than once per year and stricter prioritization is needed to limit the competence needs for the OPS competence gap matrix. When prioritization of the competence needs is done in an earlier phase, it should result more focus on the very critical competence gaps and improve the possibility to plan the implementation of them. In addition, the utilization of competence matrixes varied between managers, and it was suggested, that the competence matrixes and planned competences could be linked even better to the development objective setting process in the future.

Continuous improvement

PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is one of the fundamentals of lean developed by William Edward Deming (Janse, B. 2020). Accordingly, the implementation of the new competence management process is an iterative process which is continuously improved. After creation (“plan”) and implementation (“do”), the process was tested in practice (“check”) and few modifications were already done (“act”) and further improvement actions were identified. As the new competence management process is now part of the current practices, the process will be continuously improved.

Summary

The simple uniform competence management process was created in the case company, and it was successfully implemented into practice. Overall, the new competence management process was experienced valuable, making the future needs visible, and creating a structured way for the cross-functional conversations. The new process helps especially managers in the competence planning of their teams and gives input for the development planning. The new competence management process is also integrated as part of other recurring processes, such as HR-processes, ensuring the maintainability also in the future. The new competence management process enables the company to be better prepared for the future.

References

• Janse, B. 2020. PDCA Cycle. https://www.toolshero.com/problem-solving/pdca-cycle-deming.
• Karlöf, B. & Helin Lövingsson, F. & Tillman, M. 2009. Johtamisen näkökulmat – peruskäsitteitä ja -malleja. Helsinki: Edita Publishing Oy.
• Levasseur, R. E. 2001. People Skills: Change Management Tools – Lewin’s Change Model. Interfaces, Vol. 31 (4), 71 – 73. DOI: 10.1287/inte.31.5.71.9674
• Lewin, K. 1947. Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method and Reality in Social Science; Social Equilibria and Social Change. Human Relations, Vol. 1 (1), 5 – 41.
• Liker, J. K. & Meier, D. 2006 The Toyota way field book. A practical guide for implementing Toyota’s 4Ps. United States: The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
• Viitala, R. 2005. Johda osaamista! Osaamisen johtaminen teoriasta käytäntöön. Keuruu: Otavan kirjapaino Oy.
• Vesalainen, A. 2022. Master thesis: Creation of the uniform competence management process in a case company.