By Poul Langagergaard 

Professional competencies are more than just education, formal qualifications and courses!

You need to focus on the entire professional spectrum – knowledge, skills and behaviour in a business context.

To reap the full benefits of each employee’s available competencies, they must be viewed in light of the specific challenges the organisation is facing as a whole. What competencies are needed? Focus on each objective: what competencies are required in the department or organisation in order to achieve these?

The next step is to link to each job role in the department or organisation.  What specific professional competencies are required for each job role in order for each role to make the desired contribution? Read here and use it as inspiration.

You might list 6-10 competencies. Put them in order of priority and assign them a score between one and five. This score expresses the desired level needed for each skill.

The aim is to explore each employee’s potential
During EDP meetings and when recruiting new staff, take out this list and ask the employee or applicant to say where they see themselves in relation to the desired level. You should contribute to the discussion.

This allows you to precisely identify where development of competences is necessary or desirable.