One of the buzzwords always used by HR is competency. Now many people think that is about making sure that employees are properly skilled, that they can actually do the work you want them to. Well it can be, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Competency is about how you want people to behave. It is about personal attributes or what you want them to learn to make them more efficient and perform to a higher level. And those skill sets come in all different shapes and sizes. It can be technical skills that make them operate systems better or it can be attitudes which can make for better customer focus but most centre on the job, not the person.
But how about those core competencies that talks to the person and their behaviour. One of the basics is not to drive your customers away by their attitude but about your employees building your reputation and sales. Pretty obvious really, but so many business just fail to recognise it.
If you look at your own organisation’s competence framework there will be a set of core behaviours and skills, common to all roles in your organisation. They are intended to be the very core of your organisational culture. But how many of them cover the practical application of equality and diversity. It is all very well knowing you have a policy – it is also good to know that discrimination is something you should avoid – but how many staff have actually been told how to apply those policies in practical work situations?.
It’s about how the stuff which gets done in your organisation should be done with an eye on inclusion. It’s about embedding those core skills and a better understanding of how to avoid discrimination within every employee and teaching everyone those essential skills for the future.
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