Training and Competency

17th February 2017

Ah now this subject is a wide and diverse one, one that should be very much at the heart of a business. It is however generally overlooked unless what you do has a degree of safety criticality associated with it and either the law, or your client (or both) demands a degree of competency to be demonstrated.

Training and Competency isn’t something that should be thought of as a “big” company thing, it’s a very useful way in which you can engage with and motivate your staff, irrespective of the size of the organisation. Truth be told some larger companies can become way to process driven with this subject and miss out on that aspect.

Let’s try a psychic experiment: hold your hand up if a new computer or software package has landed on your desk without any training? ………..Whoa that’s a lot of hands……….

Before you delve into training though you need to understand what competencies you need from your staff!   To be competent, an individual needs to have skills and knowledge, and the absolutely vital ingredient here is “intrusiveness” – what depth of skill or knowledge is required?  A heating design Engineer needs differing depths of the same set of skills and knowledge to that of a plumber, they are not better just different. And if a plumber wants to become a heating design Engineer then the differences form their personal development plan. If you expect your PA to be effective then an advanced Word course is probably better than a beginners course. The key here is to put in a simple structure that records everyone’s ideal skills and knowledge attributes (for their specific job role) and then for each individual the gap between their actual skills and knowledge and the requirements of the role produces a training plan, it’s that simple.

From the training plan you can create a personal development plan and move towards full competency, and if necessary this can also form the basis of performance management. In an earlier blog we looked at setting business goals, and now you have individuals linked to these business goals and with their training plans you can see where the best use of your training budget is…………….

Training and competency management structures are also useful in the performance review process as it suggests the areas for improvement in a structured and non-emotional manner.

Surprise Surprise, people generally really like having a clear personal development plan, the provision of training – and focussed training, not some bland pointless course to endure – enriches people and they feel more valued. You get better motivated staff and they get useful skills that makes their jobs more enjoyable and less stressful.

If you would like to know more about setting up a training needs analysis or how training and competency can link in to your business structure to improve efficiency then get in touch.