The organizational, social and technological transformations due to the globalization of the economy, radically change the environment and the internal functioning of the organizations. Also, the diversity of the customers who demand the fast renewal of personalized products and services, raises several constraints in front of organizations.
The first research principles for identifying competence variables were formulated, in the 60-70s, by the American psychologist McClelland, where he described the competencies as:
- A repeated, reliable, recognized and durable capacity that corresponds only to the specifics of the organization
- A chain of operations triggered by a particular event (intention to solve a problem) that transforms inputs (resources) into outputs (performance)
- A system of structured organization that combinatorically associates several heterogeneous elements, fully mobilizing them.
Competencies represent both knowledge, skills and behaviors derived from the organization’s strategy and whose presence are mandatory in the profile of each employee to guarantee an expected level of performance. A great set of competencies can improve the success in the position that the employee occupies within the company.
Why is it important to have a skills framework?
- To develop a common language for describing and evaluating the behaviors that as an organization expect from the employees
- To provide a benchmark to facilitate accurate and consistent measurement of employee performance
- To create possibilities for managers to make better reward decisions and support individual career development.
Competence consists in the use of skills and personality traits and acquired knowledge in order to complete a specific and complex task, according to the culture and global strategy of the organization.
Regardless of the importance of having a good framework of setting the competencies, it is certain that: “Competence is a resource that comes to be added to traditional production resources (capital, labor and land). It becomes the only significant resource.” (P. Drucker)
