Competency-based management in the industry

ROVC’s roadmap helps you implement competency-based management in your company. In just 5 concrete steps.

Five concrete steps

In your industry, new developments succeed one another rapidly. It is therefore important, or rather crucial, to make sure your people are ready and able to cope with these changes. The competencies required for specific technical positions within your organization should be crystal clear. However, the risk is great that a ‘gap’ exists between the necessary competencies and the competencies currently available. This is known as the competency gap and it means there is a great deal of work to be done.

ROVC has developed a roadmap to help you implement competency-based management in 5 concrete steps:

Step 1: Determine company and staff objectives

The first step is to determine and discuss the objectives of your company / department. This is the starting point for setting personal goals for your employees.

Step 2: Map the desired situation and set down competency profiles

When mapping the desired situation, the knowledge and skills required by your staff in order to achieve their personal goals, will have to be determined. For each technical position in your company, a task analysis is performed by determining the level needed per field of expertise. This analysis is the basis for the competency profiles. The competency profiles are always based on four levels per field of technical expertise.

Step 3: Determine the current situation

The knowledge and skills of your professionals are tested to determine their current competencies. Given that people learn the most on the job, not just official diplomas and certificates should be taken into account. The recognition of prior learning is a method for considering certified competencies as well as uncertified competencies gained through work experience. An assessment of competencies can consist of an interview, a theoretical and practical assessment or a combination of the two. The test results are summarized in an individual competency report.

Step 4: Competency-gap analysis

The competency-gap analysis compares the existing knowledge and skills (step 3) with the determined competency profile (step 2). Gaps quickly become evident. The competency gap is the basis for the employee’s personal development plan.

Step 5: Create a personal development plan

A personal development / training plan describes how missing competencies can be developed. For example by attending several training courses or by internal coaching. Furthermore, it may be wise to create a structural company training and development program. This plan will give a complete overview of the total development and training needs of your personnel and possible means of fulfilling the competence gaps.