Is it Time to Health Check Your Competency Management System?

 In Blog

It is easy for competency management systems to become too cumbersome or not work as well as they could, taking too much time and ultimately not enabling organisations to achieve their competency management goals. Is it time for a competency management system health check?

Signs that there Might be a Problem

You will possibly know that your competency management system is not working well if assessments are not being completed, verification is not catching problems or people simply are not progressing with their competencies.  People might be resistant to working on their competencies and assessors might never have the time to do the assessing.

Quick Steps to Take

If this is sounding familiar, there are things you can check reasonably easily within your competency management system.

Firstly, make sure that your competency management system has remained focused on your overall business strategy and the agreed vision for your competency management system.  Have you avoided, over the years, getting side-tracked by extra details that take you off track and do not achieve the overall objectives or your original map for your competency management system? 

Secondly, have you kept your approach risk-based?  Straying away from this type of approach allows other aspects to creep in that should be secondary to managing your identified risks.

When the focus moves unconsciously away from a risk-based approach, competency management systems tend to get too large and too difficult to implement or manage. 

Are you clear on what should be in your system and what should not be in your assessment system? Are you happy that your competency management system still reflects this?

Thirdly, have you stayed focused on key competencies and not overloaded with secondary competencies? 

These additional competencies might be nice to have and sound like a good idea but in practice, these are the ones that are likely to weigh people down and stop them achieving competency.  Importantly, they can also distract them from the key competencies that are critical to your competency management system, and everyone’s safety and success.

Fourthly, have you given your assessors sufficient training and then guidance so that they know what they are doing and are confident to act?  Do new assessors receive appropriate training? Is assessor refresher training needed?

Getting the initial training and on-going support for your assessors is vital.  If they do not have this, they cannot do their job.  They are likely to delay assessing or if they do go ahead, you may find that they are not doing it as well as you would have liked or in the way that you require.

Focusing in this area can help resolve a lot of issues.

Fifthly, do you have a comprehensive approach with internal verifiers at the heart of this? 

Your internal verifiers and the person or team running your competency management system can make sure that people are not over or under assessing, they can make sure that documentation and process is being followed but not making things more complicated for those involved and they can help keep your competency management system moving forward.

Going Online?

Taking your competency management system online can also help you streamline your approach, allowing your team to instantly check their progress, upload their evidence, allowing assessors to review and give instant feedback, and making it easier for everyone involved to have a clearer picture of the state of play for all team members at any point in time.

Please Get in Touch

If you would like help with a health check of your competency management system, would like to find out more about how we can help you with competency management or you are interested in our competency management software, Progress, please get in touch.

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