MODULE 7 - BUILDING COMPETENCY - PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Competency mapping is an approach that has the objective of helping an organization align individual development with the strategic objectives of the company. Competence is of fundamental importance to every company and institution to cope with new markets and new requirements from the customers and clients. It is important to have an under­standing of the fact that the knowledge of each worker and a common knowledge for the whole company are of greatest importance to reach the strategic goals and to carry out the strategic plans.

The competence of the workers is as important as the means of production, the products, the economy and the market, and here we talk about new competence adapted to what the company produces now and will produce in the future.

Increased competition between companies leads to higher demands for quality, shorter delivery time and better guarantee for delivery in time. All these requirements assume that workers have better knowledge and a better understanding of the company's activities.

Competence is not only an important issue at manufacturing companies that make a product, but also at service institutions, both private and public. A social security office or an employment office produces services to the public that must be delivered in time and of good quality.

Not only the companies themselves, but both the labour unions of the workers and the employers federations co-operates for a better understanding of the issue. Govern­ments make reports and prepare the educational institutions for a future where all working people needs refill of knowledge throughout the whole working life.

The companies and institutions experience a gap ("the competence gap") between the existing knowledge in the organization and the needed knowledge. This gap has come into being because the market is demanding and only companies/institutions that adapt to these higher demands will survive.

These demands deal with quality, price, time of delivery etc. That means workers have to learn new skills, both regarding to the product or the service produced and to the marketing and transport of the product.

We have to sure that each worker and the company as a whole has the correct knowledge to fulfill these tasks. Therefore we have to map the competence and compare this existing competence with the wanted competence, the competence that is needed to make a better product and thereby to survive in a competitive market.

One more important aspect of "competence mapping" is that the mapping process initiates other processes in the company/institution that is very important. Since the mapping process can be quite extensive each worker will be more active in relation to the company's goal and strategic plans of the company.

A Competency is something that describes how a job might be done, excellently; a Competence only describes what has to be done, not how. So the Competences might describe the duties of a Sales Manager for example, such as manage the sales office and its staff, prepare quotations and sales order processing, manage Key Accounts and supervise and motivate the field sales force. The Competencies which might determine excellence in this role could include Problem Solving and Judgment; Drive and Determination; Commercial Awareness; Inter-personal skills etc, all of which might be described further by Behavioural Indicators relating specifically to that post in that organisation.The broad concept might be said to be based on the frequently quoted adage:

“People get hired for what they know but fired for how they behave.”

The word competence is used interchangeable with the word knowledge in most reports discussing the subject. In this report the two words will be used as synonyms. Learning and competence is very tightly interwoven and it's therefore important to know how learning leads to competence, how we should create learning communities and what each individual should learn.

One central question is therefore: What is competence?

Many answers have been given to this question. Some of the answers are listed below:

·       Competence is people's ability, alone or in a community, to solve situational and targeted tasks.

·       Learning gives new competence. Attitude and knowledge (both practical and theoretical) controls our actions.

·       In a changing world we will also question if already learned skills and attitudes are the correct ones to succeed in the future. Established procedures can be complete wrong compared to new challenges.

Wullf and Skaret [2] operate with two forms of competence (knowledge). That is:

·       Implicit knowledge (Silent knowledge): This is an unconscious mental model, patterns of understanding and drilled motor skills.

·       Explicit knowledge: This is knowledge that you can point out, that you can articulate in words.

Theoretical knowledge is not always necessary to master a field, but practical knowledge must always be there to master something. Important knowledge is very often based on experiences, integrated into something one performs and is based on knowledge difficult to express.

Competitive power for a company can be found in powerful combinations of theoretical knowledge and experienced and silent knowledge.

It is very common to distinguish between individual knowledge and collective knowledge. The last one is knowledge that belongs to a community, for example a group or an organization. Companies can have procedures for invoicing, for quality control, and for handling customer relations. Only a few of these procedures are formal and written down. Most of the procedures are informal and used more or less unconsciously. The company's collective knowledge area closely bound to the collective procedures and pattern of collaboration that the company masters

Competence mapping is to make a connection between what the company needs and what the worker can perform and eventually detect a gap. One assumption that must be present to uncover this gap is that current status of the competence can be documented. The company also has to define what is needed now and in the future.

With this knowledge one can be able to uncover a competence gap and prescribe what to do next.

To map the competence of a company or an institution is not easy, and below we will take a closer look to competence mapping and related items.

It is recommend to following step-by-step process for competency mapping.

In this step, the leadership of the organization meets to brainstorm which core competencies the organization requires in order to achieve its objectives, goals, and vision.  Examples of core competencies that are usually essential in organizations are problem solving, teambuilding, decision-making, and communication skills.

After the leadership decides which competencies are essential, it’s necessary to determine the degree to which, and manner in which, these competencies are required in each type of position (i.e., Sales Manager, Receptionist, and CEO).  This assessment can be made through interviews with incumbents of sample positions, using a Position Information Questionnaire (PIQ).  A sample is attached.

Following the interview process, job descriptions can be developed that include not only duties and reporting relationships but the core competency descriptions that are tailored to each position.  The same competencies are included in each employee’s performance appraisal instrument so that he/she is evaluated on the same criteria that are specified in the job description.

For career development purposes, new employees (or potential employees) will be interested in career progression options available once they master different competency levels.  As career options become more complex and sophisticated, the core competencies are elevated in terms of sophistication as well.

Step 5. Individual Development Planning

Using the job descriptions and the performance appraisal process as a foundation, Human Resources can provide coaching for individuals based on their unique developmental needs.  For example, if a sales representative is interested in a position as Sales Manager, Human Resources professional can counsel this person about current strengths and areas for improvement and point out the competency levels required for the higher level position.  Then the employee and the HR person can jointly map out a plan for the employee’s development (courses, workshops, mentoring, etc.)

Competence mapping should focus more on what the organizations as a whole can manage than looking at the formal knowledge that each individual worker has. But of course, we have to start with each individual, to fulfill that each individual has the wanted formal knowledge and the necessary skills and know-how to do a god job for the company. The problem is that it is here the gap comes true; it's between what we can measure and what we know about each individual on one side and what the company on the other side needs.

The problem is the silent knowledge, because it his here the competence gap most often is uncovered. Silent knowledge is visible when the individual performs a task, preferably a task relevant for the new challenges the company is meeting. Otherwise silent knowledge is not visible.

1. The company

The development of the competence must be connected to the company's goal and strategic planning. Important questions are:

·       What is the company/institutions core competence and what must be mastered to succeed?

·       How should the companies arrange its program for competence development?

What is, for example, most important for the company to succeed and to reach it's goals: Is it customer support or is it general service, is it price or is it quality? When the company knows what the most important issues are, the right program for competence development can be started.

Seen from the company, competence development is always a question of obtaining new competence, developing new competence and phase out old, not needed competence. The goal is always to have the correct competence needed to help the company reaching its goals and its most important challenges.

2. The individual

For each individual worker one has to make following questions:

·       What kind of competence is valuable for me, both in the context of the challenges of the company and for the general development of the society?

·       How can I obtain the "asked for" competence and how can I implement it in practical working?

Competence for the individual is important in the companies' view as stated above, because the company is depended of the individual competence. But competence is also important for the individual as such because a positive attitude from the worker is a very important condition for a good work and an experience of mastering the work.

New competence enables the worker to meet new challenges and to solve new tasks.

The most interesting competence is the competence that produces most competition power, but that competence is most difficult to map because it is silent (implicit) and very often collective. The silent competence pops up only when it is needed.

When mapping competence it's crucial to choose one or more views for how to look at competence. The question is what aspects of competence one should try to map.

Wullf and Skaret list several such perspectives (or aspects) to consider competence:

·       The Individual perspective - Find out what competence each individual in the company has and find out how these findings fits together with the company's goals and strategy.We don't talk about a complete competence map for the individual, but more of important segments, for example extensive knowledge about products is necessary for people working in a department store.

·       The business perspective - What competence is need to reach the internal and the external goals? What new goals are possible through the new competence that has been obtained?

·       The changing world perspective - How can we identify need for a change in a way that initiates a process for change? How should a learning environment headed for change be designed? How can we make a good mixture of formal learning processes and informal learning through practice at work? How to balance collective and individual learning.

·       Collaboration, learning in network - The concept of creating learning material in collaboration is used very often nowadays. The concept strengthens the issue that the students themselves should contribute to produce the learning material, and thereby learning more. In this perspective we also talk about competence development through common research and development projects and planned learning activities between companies that co-operates.

One important question is how can Information and Communication Technology contribute to collaboration and next to competence development in companies.

Despite these built-in problems with the task of uncovering the competence gap we have to try to find out what competence the worker has today and what is needed in the future. Can we uncover some general competence that every worker needs for the next 5-10 years, a competence that we most certain know that workers need in a changing world? If that's true the task is more manageable, because then we could uncover if these knowledge items are present or not. And in that way we can uncover a competence gap, and prescribe a cure for how to fill the gap.

The problem is of course which general items of competence are important in the future. Some items seems to be quite clear in a smaller and smaller world with people working together globally through global electronic networks. These items are:

·       Collaboration based in information and communication technology

·       Language

·       Culture and interpersonal relations

·       Rules and regulations

Culture change and competence Mapping

·       Culture

Organizational Culture Refers to the patterns of beliefs, Values and learned ways of coping with experience, which tend to be manifested in (the organizations) material arrangements and in the behavior of its members. (Brown 1998:9)Culture is the commonly held beliefs, attitudes and values that exist in an organization .Put more simply; culture is “the way we do things around here.” Fur ham and Gunter (1993) Edgar Schein, one of the most prominent theorists of organizational culture, gave the following very general definition:

The culture of a group can now be defined as: A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. (Schein 373-374). In other words, as groups evolve over time, they face two basic challenges: integrating individuals into an effective whole, and adapting effectively to the external environment in order to survive. As groups find solutions to these problems over time, they engage in a kind of collective learning, which creates the set of shared assumptions and beliefs called "culture.Hofstede (1994) described levels of culture by symbols, heroes, rituals and values. Symbols are words, objects, conditions, acts or characteristics of persons that signify something different or wider from themselves with meaning for individual or groupAccording to Edgar Schein, cultural analysis is especially valuable for dealing with aspects of organizations, which seem irrational, frustrating, and intractable. He writes, "The bottom line for leaders is that if they do not become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, those cultures will manage them." (Schein 375)Because culture is so deeply rooted in an organization’s history and collective experience, working to change it requires a major investment of time and resources.

·       How Human resource management facilitates organizational culture change.It is logical to assume organizational culture is inevitably entwined with HUMAN RESOURSE MANAGEMENT. In other words organizational culture is inextricably linked to the concerns of Human Resource Management. It has been suggested that one of the major roles of the centralized human resource management department is the development of organizational culture.According to Philps Consulting international it has even been recommended to define Human Resource Management as the management of Organizational Culture. This would imply that there is a wider range of activities in HUMAN RESOURSE MANAGEMENT than the traditional list of activities and services, which include planning the organizations human resource needs as well as staffing those needs through recruitment and selection.

This includes the planning and forecasting the organization’s short as well as long –term human resource requirements. This is emphasized by generating a pool of people who fit in with the culture of the organization. Human resource systems, policies and practices have great leverage over an organizations culture. The precise nature of this leverage is likely to be highly complex. Brown (1998)Suggests that it is clear that Human resource function, can be most effectively manage culture using “constant cues approach. The approach states that all aspects of every Human resource programme must unequivocally promote the desired culture. The idea of consistently promoting norms, values and beliefs that other dispositions will disappear. Variations of interpretation with policies and procedures are what massively complicate cultural life.

Recruitment and Selection processes can help facilitate a change in organizational culture. Recruitment and selection mechanisms are extremely powerful means of managing how an organizational culture develops as they directly control what sort of people an organization employs. Their influence is probably greatest during a period of rapid organizational growth when many new recruits are being employed, and least significant when the workforce is static or decreasing.Armstrong (1999) suggests an human resourse management approach can be adapted to recruitment, which involves taking much more care in matching people to the requirements of the organization as a whole as well as to the particular needs of the job.These requirements will include commitment and ability to work effectively as a member of a team towards the achievement of organizational goals.

The main aim for organizations with intent to manage their culture should be to generate a pool of people who are familiar with the organization and its culture, and who themselves fit in .How the organization choose to recruit depends on the organization itself and its needs whether it be internal or external. Brown (1998) refers to external recruitment e.g. advertising through newspapers, trade journals and recruitment consultancies as “hit and miss” process. Attempts can be made to maximize the chances of attracting culturally compatible people through advertisements and follow up information packs which provide a realistic insight into how the organization operates and the sort of people it wants to employ.e.g the Irish Defence Forces promotes a recruitment web site and requires applicants suited to an environment of a “life less ordinary’.The priority for the recruitment and selection process is to be able to select people with core competencies i.e. the relevant skills and experience required to carry out the job, and who are compatible culturally with the organization. It is surprising how many organizations do not take the necessary steps in employing the right People, as empirical evidence has shown, considering the impact of culture evolving over time.In essence, if used properly, selection, in principle can be a good tool to manage the culture of an organization by getting employees with the required personality types and skills. Selection tests e.g. aptitude and personality tests are likely t provide the most valuable insights into an individuals culture inclinations. An Organizations Reward system is another powerful means for influencing its culture. Kerr and Slocum (1987). The reward system specifies guidelines for what employees have to do in order to receive pay raises, bonuses, promotions and praise. Managing culture through reward systems is a regular process for the HR manager. As with performance appraisal, reward systems can involve many interrelated processes, and provide plenty of opportunities for molding culture development. Appraising and compensating are key functions of human resource management. Appraisal is a formal structured system of measuring, evaluating and influencing employees in theConduct of their work. It can be used for the management of culture. The nature of an appraisal system impact depends on the nature of the organizations culture.An Organization that desires a culture where achievement is paramount would most likely favor a system based on results, which is the most favored system by many organizations. The reward system exhibits a way of influencing culture.Organizational Development is a process carried out by many organizations in order to bring about change. An organizational development person in most cases is the Human resource manager. OD is a planned and coherent approach to improving organizational effectiveness.Bennis (1960) describes it as “a response to change, a complex educational strategy intended to change the beliefs, attitudes, values and structure of organizations so they can better adapt to new technologies, markets, and challenges and the dizzying rate of change itself.”Organizations are social systems in which people are strongly influenced by organizational culture. Therefore the most potent tool for improvement is cultural change.The goal is to increase the long-term health and performance of the organization, while enriching the lives of its members. The OD approach emphasizes organizational culture, which influences the way people work. The method is using planned change based on research to increase motivation. Every project is different but one example is: when designing an intervention the HR consultant needs information on the goals of the individuals and the areas involved, the expectations of the project, organizational constraints and other issues, Hr work with top leaders to develop a basic strategy for the organization including a vision of the future of some idea of “how they will get there” Hr develops people measures (surveys) which encompass the information gained. The measures are then administered; key themes received and reported back and then implication are worked on. Organizational Development transforms the organizational culture by working with systems such as culture, work processes, communication and rewards. One of the main affects according to Armstrong (1999 –218). People of all areas have the same goals, communication is open laterally and vertically and relevant facts and feelings are shared.Is it true to say that Human resource Management (Mapping competencies) Facilitates organizational culture change as its involvement with policies and procedures have great influence on a company’s organizational culture .The New Hr focus in the majority of organizations today is on outcomes. Job advertisements for Hr specialists in industry reflect this new dimension, leading and facilitating change specialists are required to develop new initiatives to meet present and future needs, work and support people at every level, drive change and promote continued learning principles, customize training and development, create internal solutions to build a new transitional culture that supports both human values and increase effectiveness. (Beer 1993).

How to enhance performance by Competence Mapping in ICT-based collaboration?

Our mission is to uncover competence gaps in the area of how clever workers are to use ICT (Information and Communication Technology) in collaborative work both internal in the company and towards external partners. As well using ICT for educational purposes.

ICT means a global business life and as a result of those workers has to be trained not only in information technology, but also in international rules and regulations, language and culture.

Most people consider the use of ICT as one of the necessary key components to succeed in business in the future. It is therefore crucial for a company to master these techniques.

The next step is therefore to make a method and/or a questionnaire to uncover the competence gap in these relevant areas for future business life, these areas that are common to all companies regardless of what business sector the company belongs to. And after that we have to prescribe how to fill this competence gap with something.

The ICT acronym stands for Information and Communication Technology. This technology brings people together both for educational purposes and for ordinary business work. In our context we focus mostly on education purposes since our main concern is filling the competence gap. Important in this context is not only the educational content, i.e. the subjects taught, but also the learning of how to use the technology as a collaborative tool.

Talking about competence gaps and problems reach the goals of the company because of wrong and not updated competence is very often regarded as a new problem for companies and for workers. Sending workers to seminars have traditionally solved this “competence gap” -problem, for example for one week at a hotel in another part of the country. In the long run this method is expensive and not very flexible.

Modern technology can raise the competence work in the company to new heights. It is not any more necessary to travel away getting competence. Electronic collaboration products, known as Information and Communications Technology (ICT), allow people to work together without having to actually be together.

The most obvious benefits for workers and for companies are:

·       The learning activity is happening at the workplace.

·       Modern technology is used.

·       The learning activity can easily be adapted to the day-to-day workload in the company.

Each company has a financial economy to cope with, i.e. budgets, accounts etc. A new term used more and more often is knowledge economy because companies believe that its success will be based on the ability to manage the organizations intellectual capital, also know as the enterprise knowledge [5].

Companies are realizing that the ability to better manage the knowledge of the firm will have tremendous benefits to all levels of the organization. For example:

·       Stop reinventing the wheel every time a new project starts because the knowledge learned from past projects is available and accessible by all.

·       To collaborate and work with team members around the world applying the best ideas and experts to problems regardless of where they are located.

ICT plays an important role to maintain and to manage this crucial enterprise knowledge.

Collaboration has of course always existed in companies and between companies. The new things are that technology bring new dimension into collaboration because it brings people together independently of where they are for the moment and mostly also independent of time, or for short: Independent of location and time.

Collaborative computing is defined as applications that allow the sharing of information and resources between two or more people. The World Wide Web, with its Web pages, is one of the most used tools for collaboration. Orbiting around Web one also find e-mail, electronic discussion groups, and chat and desktop videoconferences as the main tools for a computer based collaboration.

A networked computer system provides the basis for a collaborative computing infrastructure.

The most basic collaborative computing application, e-mail, has been around for the longest time. E-mail has replaced the written memo in many organizations, saving both time and money. At its most basic level, e-mail allows end-users to create, send and read messages.

E-mail used for collaboration can be quite demanding because people using it has to be fairly well organized since they have to manage their own message store.

E-mail is best for one-to-one communication and one-to-many communication. For many-to-many communication electronic discussion groups should be used as a better alternative.

One more important feature of e-mail is the asynchronous communication. The people communication need not be present at the same time. The communication can take place when most convenient.

Discussion groups (News) are a messaging system similar to e-mail with one important difference: Discussion groups are many-to-many communication. All messages are open to all members of the discussion group.

A message store is part of the discussion group system, and each member of the group therefore does not need to manage his own message store.

Discussion group performs best as a collaborative tool when subjects of general interests are discussed, either in the context of a project or in the context of the public.

World Wide Web is a system for distributing information fast and easy world wide through web pages containing text and pictures.

The flexibility of World Wide Web makes it a convenient system for collaboration, mostly because it is easy to publish own information. In a learning environment it can be used as a central place for learning materials, exercises, message board for administrative purposes, entrance for other activities as discussion groups, chats, desktop video conferences etc.

In a similar way World Wide Web can be used in ordinary project work in a company. The web page can be used as a communication central where links to all collaborative activities are listed.

In its simplest form, chat applications involve activities where participants collaborate through writing messages to each other then and there. This service is called Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and is very common on the Internet. Participants must be connected at the same time, and text messages written by participants are immediately displayed on the monitors of the other participants. In this way, the service appears similar to an open telephone conference.

Desktop videoconferencing is a new collaborative technology with enormous potential. It is a tight integration of real-time video, audio and data working very well as a supplement to the ordinary face-to-face meetings. Videoconferencing as such is not new; it is the combination of video and audio with personal computers and networks that makes it a very promising tool for the future.

The big benefit of desktop videoconference is interactivity. People in collaboration can ask questions, give answers, make statements etc. on the run and discuss problems/solutions immediately. In many ways it is similar to telephone, but of course it is much more in addition.

Desktop videoconference systems are very often bundled with systems for sharing documents. That means people participating in a videoconference can work on the same document simultaneously. One person is always in control an can edit the document, but each of the other persons can on demand take control over the document and do some editing. In that way the participants can collaboratively and interactive create or revise a document, for example an agenda or a drawing of some kind.

Activities in business and education are getting more and more international and therefore demand new attitudes and new skills from the persons involved. An important issue is to identify and describe some key skills needed by persons working international.

One of the most obvious aspects of international work is that it differs mostly because of cultural differences. Culture in this context means rules and norms of human interaction. These cultural differences are related to different background factors of history, geography, religion, education, politics, economics, country size, and personal circumstance [4].

In the report from STATSKONSULT [4] five different skills are listed that is seen as very important for government officials. These skills are also are important for all kind of international work as well, for example in business.

These five skills are:

1.     Vocational skills: Knowing your job is of course the first and most important skill. You must be updated with the last findings and developments within your business branch.

2.     Negotiating skills: This skill is very closed linked to the culture skills and system skills. Not all people working international need these skills, but some key person without doubt need this skill?

3.     Language skills: Many persons (according to [4]) report language as a skill they wanted to learn more of. Improvements in this area are very desirable.The importance of language is of course due to language as the most common mean of communication, and therefore exerting influence.

4.     Cross cultural behavior skills: Besides language this skill is regarded as the most desirable and the skill that leave most space for improvements. Cultural and communicative skills, and the ability to master the informal rules of the game are very important.While in-depth knowledge of different cultures can be hard to attain, an awareness of the fact that cultural differences do exist is necessary for proper communication on an international level. Such awareness will serve as a reminder to be considered in dealing with other people, and thus to guard against drawing hasty conclusions.

5.     System skills: This is about finding the way through the maze, or shortly: You need to know how the system works. Many people starting working international, especially within the EU system reports that the lack a clear understanding of the functioning of the EU system. The learning of the structure and functions of the EU system is therefore of greatest importance.

·       Uncovering the competence gap

In the WP2 survey the companies answering the questionnaire reported lack of competence in the following areas:

·       IT in general

·       In using collaborative tools

Lack of IT competence is a worldwide problem that every company is trying to handle. The reason for this is the explosive growth of information technology that has changed the way we live, work and does business. This growth has created a large, rapidly growing requirement for people who can design, build, install, service and install today’s and tomorrow’s IT applications.

This demand for skilled people is so large that the term “IT Skills Gap” of “Competence Gap” is widely used referring to this problem. Many companies have addressed this problem using own resources and started in-house programs both for training and retraining of people.

The companies that are fully aware of this competence gap try to solve the problem by sending the workforce on seminars. But very often these seminars are not aimed directly to the specific needs of the company or the actual worker. Most often it is a general seminar aimed to satisfy a large group of people with many and various needs.

The future methods for training the workforce will be based on in-house training methods. This method has several benefits:

·       The people do not need to leave the workplace

·       The training could be designed to support an ongoing project, and in that way be directly relevant for the work

Small companies with fewer resources and small IT departments have an especially hard time training and retraining their IT workforce. These do not have resources to manage their own in-house training and do have problems being without key personnel for several days if they are on seminars. These companies must look for other methods to train the people. One way is to collaborate with other companies and with educational and training institutions to share the burden of training and retraining costs. One solution for these companies is to use Internet and network based collaborative tools to train people. In that way, sending people away to seminars is unnecessary and people can train while they are doing their ordinary job.

More, by using collaborative tools on Internet the employees are also trained to use "the tools of tomorrow" regarding how people from different parts of the world will collaborate.

The competence gap is a problem that could arise in several areas. For the moment the problems are most severe in the IT area. Later it could be in other areas. These areas were also reported as main problem areas regarding competence lack in the WP2 questionnaire survey.

But to uncover that competence is lacking and to know what type of skills are mostly lacking the manager of a company need some tools to uncover competence gap, and next give some help to design and specify what is needed to fill the gap with new knowledge. In a formal way these tools must measure the competence that is lacking, and to do this, a framework and a terminology for measuring competence are needed.

Companies lacking specific competence are most often not able to cope with the situation themselves because workers are already overused. Increased collaboration between industry and education and training institutions are therefore strongly recommended. Together they must ensure that the training programs support the industry needs. The existing educational programs from the educational institutions should be evaluated and adapted to meet the industries special needs.

Educational institutions must be able to deliver programs and courses at the workplace. Courses that can be linked to ongoing project work are especially attractive because that will increase the relevance of the subject.

The company and educational institution must co-operate to:

·       Discover the most suitable training needed to address the identified competence gap.

·       Continually focus on improvement areas. It is therefore recommended that companies undertake regular self-assessments or independent assessments conducted by external institutions.

Firstly, there is a strong need for a framework regarding uncovering the competence gap. By framework we mean terminology, a description of concepts, levels of competence etc. But assume this framework exists there are several procedures for how to uncover the gap.

·       Self-assessment: Let each person evaluate his/hers competence and the relevance of this competence to current work content. Self-assessment gives several things at the same time: “It helps building an in depth understanding of the area of being assessed; it helps show the gap between what is and what the person feels it want to be; it serves as a motive for change; and since the results are clearly based on the knowledge, experience and belief of the person, they are more likely to take ownership and initiate actions that help make the changes happen” [3].

·       Questionnaire: A questionnaire could be on its own or it could be a follow-up of a self assessment. The questionnaire could ask more in detail about the things from the self-assessment and find out more about the gap. The questionnaire could also find out any differences between how the person judge his own competence and how it is in reality

Conclusion:

 The impact of internationalization, information technology, cultural diversity, total quality, and diversity has led to a paradigm shift. In other words, for today’s and tomorrow’s organisation and management, there are new rules with different boundaries requiring new and different behaviour inside the boundaries for organisation and management to be successful.

In order to face such diversity successfully, Competence Mapping is a great tool to be implemented effectively in any organisation for enhancing the performance of individuals and organisation as a whole.

List of References

[1] Egil Wullf og Mona Skaret: Can competence be mapped? (Originally in Norwegian: Kan kompetanse kartlegges?)

[2] William A. Flexner and Kimbal L. Wheatley: When You Really Must Have Them: Face-to-Face Meetings Using Keypad Electronics Meeting Systems. Page 200 in the book "Groupware" edited by David Coleman, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-727728-8

[3] STATSKONSULT, Directorate of Public Management: "International Competence for Norwegian Civil Servants", ISBN 82-7483-039-3. Address: STATSKONSULT, P.O.Box 8115 Dep, 0032 Oslo, Norway.

[4] David Coleman: Groupware - The changing Environment. Page 33 in the book “Groupware” edited by David Coleman, Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-727728-8

[5] Arne B. Mikalsen: "Building a Virtual Workshop Collaboration based on Internet Technology". Paper presented on the conference: "Networked Lifelong Learning", University of Sheffield, April 1998