Up and down the country there is unrest in companies. There are already too few skilled workers today, and in the coming years masses of baby boomers will leave the labour market. The large gap that opens up here cannot remotely be filled by the following generation. In parallel, current topics such as digitalisation, sustainability or supply chains demand fundamental transformation processes from companies. All these challenges call for new structures and new competences. That places those responsible for HR before the task of managing the balancing act between a changed labour market and a changed business world. For that they need a systematic and structured approach to competences. Competence management is therefore moving increasingly into focus in many companies. Because it has never been more pressing than today to know your employees' competences and to develop your people purposefully, in order to secure the company's ability to act and to innovate.
A company's prospects of success grow with its competences
Competences are among the resources critical to an organisation's success, and they are becoming ever more valuable. Only those with competent employees can change the company, develop its business model in line with the needs of the market and lead it successfully into the future. Competence management therefore takes on a key role in successful business development and is relevant in many areas, such as company strategy, recruiting, training, succession management, people development and career paths. Competence management focuses on developing your own workforce, which, given the intensifying shortage of skilled workers, will often be more promising than recruiting. It is therefore essential for management to keep developing the competences of individuals and teams continuously in line with the needs of the company goals.
Competence management: what does that mean exactly?
Competence develops over a longer period and builds on various abilities, skills and bodies of knowledge. A person's professional capacity to act shows in how successfully they master the demands of their work. That presupposes that the person can bring their knowledge and their acquired cognitive abilities and skills into the work process appropriately and responsibly, and is also motivated to do so.
Competence management in a company describes the systematic use of a competence model in order to build, maintain and develop the necessary competences within the business in a structured way. The competence model shows which competences an employee has to have in order to be successful and, through systematic planning, execution and review, creates transparency about competence requirements. Competence management aims at employees continuously acquiring new knowledge, connecting old knowledge with new and then bringing it into work processes and new contexts for action. Within the company, continuous development of competences leads to better quality in products and services and so secures the organisation's future viability and competitiveness.
Goodbye watering can: focusing on the competence requirements that really matter
In the past, classic competence models in companies were often developed over months or years with great effort and without digital support. Modern agile competence models, by contrast, are geared very specifically to the individual, specific needs of the company and its people and to the professional challenges they face. They can be integrated into new or existing HR systems and are ideally suited to mid sized companies. The aim of an agile concept is to get moving quickly and to record the first measurable successes quickly.
A competence model can first be designed in pilot areas and developed from there and extended to other areas of the company. It is defined which competences an employee needs for each role and position, and the requirements are captured in a competence model. With the agile model the company can secure the competences it needs lastingly and purposefully while at the same time raising employee motivation through transparency and taking people along in the development of the business.
THE MAK'ED TEAM can look back on a great deal of national and international experience in business development and has already developed and introduced numerous competence management systems in various industries.
Further information on people development, organisational development and strategy can be found in our portfolio.
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