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Competence and Productivity

 

Two different things surely?

 

Productivity is the engine of profit and Competence involves training and is a drag on performance.

 

Certainly that is traditionally how training is regarded, and that simple logic drives companies to reduce costs by simply looking for the cheapest training course.

 

But what if training and competent performance could be a real driver of productivity, and what if that was easy to do?

 

What is Competent performance?

 

Before we can discuss competent work place performance we must have a clear understanding of what that might actually mean.

 

I have found a useful definition of competence to be

 

“The ability to use knowledge, understanding, practical and thinking skills to perform effectively to the standards required in employment.”

 

Each industry has its own set of regulations and regulatory or training organizations that analyse needs and compile training standards.

 

Personnel reach competence mostly by undertaking training in one form or another to the recognized standards.

 

The training is often funded by companies, mostly through external training courses so that the required set of certificates are held by each person.

 

This training is designed to provide the basic understanding, thinking and practical skills that are required to allow competent performance. The training is the foundation of effective, safe working performance.

 

However, we know that competence means more than being trained and holding a certificate.

 

Look at the master of the Costa Concordia, or the Braer or the Sea Empress or the Exxon Valdez – every one of them had completed all the training and held all the certificates they needed to be in that position.

 

In addition it means that behaviour and performance at work must consistently meet specified criteria.

 

This is where the second part of our definition offers companies opportunities to improve efficiency.

 

“perform effectively to the standards required in employment”.

 

Many educational and industry training bodies now describe training outcomes in terms of competencies and require that evidence of performance is assessed.

 

These bodies describe job functions and how the performance objectives might be demonstrated and assessed.

There is a real opportunity here for companies to use these standards to improve productivity.

 

Training is 100% cost effective when 100% of the knowledge and behavior changes are seen in work performance.

The competence based standards now offer companies the chance to measure this.

 

They can take the standards and develop internal processes to continuously monitor performance against them.

 

In addition, once the procedures exist they can incorporate the requirements of their own management system manuals, essentially creating their own competence standards.

 

Instead of repeating standard training courses, where gaps are identified, companies can build targeted internal learning and remedial processes.

 

Together this helps create excellence and provides extra value for the company through efficient training, reliable work performance, reduced incidents and non-conformities.