It is generally recognized that a person is competent to do something when he shows that he knows how to do it. If the something referred to in the previous paragraph has to do with work, it can be said that the person is competent in his work; that is to say, it has or possesses labor competence. Labor competence is, then, one of the different attributes of the person -in his character as a worker- and said competence is, therefore, identifiable in the person himself. The identification of the labor competence of a worker is possible if and only if the labor referent in which the competence will be applied is also defined.
Therefore, it is appropriate to establish that in terms of work, a person is competent when he shows that he knows, that is, that he is capable of carrying out the specified work activity, in conditions of efficiency and safety. Due to the above, any action to identify labor competence necessarily requires having the indicators and, where appropriate, the benchmarks that make it possible for the competence to refer to specific identifiable aspects in the labor field. When it comes to an individual case, the problem is very easy to solve, and it can be said that it has been solved without major difficulties at different times and in the different contexts in which the production of goods has taken place or is taking place. services. However,When it comes to creating a system that encompasses the productive sector, regardless of whether it is regional or national, the problem is complex since it is necessary to establish precisely, on the one hand, the labor reference parameters for the different productive activities considered and, on the other, the way in which the competition should be identified.
Introduction (continues) In consideration of the previous approach, this subsection is made up of two sections that have to do, one, with the identification of labor competence in people and, two, with the way of proceeding to identify aspects work in which it is considered that the competence must be manifested. The first aspect has to do with what in Mexico has been called Technical Standards of Labor Competency and the second, refers to the Functional Analysis technique that, as in other countries, is being applied in Mexico for the identification of labor aspects that could be considered as the references for which the Technical Standards of Labor Competence are generated. It can be said that the two aspects are complementary, in fact they are integrated for the ultimate purpose,which is to identify pertinent labor competences in the productive sector of goods and services.
The Technical Norm of Labor Competence
If it is assumed, as mentioned, that labor competence corresponds to the capacity of a person to carry out a certain productive activity, the most objective way to determine if that person is competent is to have the evidence that he was able to carry out work safely and efficiently, that is, to achieve the expected result. The foregoing necessarily leads to defining which aspects of the job should be evaluated and how the evaluation of those aspects should be done in order to be sure that it has been demonstrated to possess the necessary labor competence.
The Technical Norm of Labor Competence (continues) In the event that it is a matter of identifying the competence of a person to perform a certain job, the difficulty to do so can be considered minimal; it would be enough to ask the person to carry out the established task and obtain information directly about their behavior in executing the task and draw conclusions from the analysis of the product or the result of the activity. If the execution and the result correspond to what could be considered satisfactory, it can be concluded that the person is competent to carry out the specific activity that served as a reference. Now, when the situation is not related to a person but rather to the group of workers - active or potential - in a country, for example,it is neither practical nor economical to try to identify the competence of the workers based on the tasks they perform or will perform, even assuming that it was possible (which it is not) to determine what tasks are going to be performed by the people who join to productive activity.
A solution that has been found to effectively address the problem of identifying the labor competence of a large number of people is to standardize the way of identifying said competence, that is, to create a standardized (identification) system of labor competence.
The creation of the aforementioned system has as a cornerstone the precise identification of the different aspects that must be taken into account to ensure that compliance with the established requirements is true, objective and, if possible, unquestionable evidence that the person is competent.
The Technical Norm of Labor Competence (continues) Given the nature and purpose of the document in which they establish the requirements that must be met for the demonstration of competence, the Mexican System has characterized it as a standard.1
Based on this, in Mexico the document that serves as a reference for the identification of a person's labor competence is generically called the Technical Norm of Labor Competence.
It should be noted that the Mexican model considers that the Technical Standards for Labor Competence are elaborated by Standardization Committees made up of workers and employers. The Committee proposes the Norm to the Council for the Normalization and Certification of Labor Competence and when it is approved by it and sanctioned by the Secretaries of Public Education and Labor and Social Security, it becomes part of the National Normalized System of Labor Competence.
The structural basis of the Technical Norm of Labor Competence, that is, with which the identification of labor competence will be made, is an elementary productive function, called the element of competition. It is around this element of competition, product of the Functional Analysis (whose characteristics will be seen in the next section) that the standard form for the identification of competition is structured.
The Technical Norm of Labor Competence (continues) In the Mexican model it has been considered, taking as a background the experience in other countries, that the demonstration of competence for the performance of a productive activity, in this case referred to the so-called element of competence, must be given considering the following aspects, called normative components: Performance criteria, Field of Application, Evidence for Performance and Evidence for Knowledge.
Performance criteria Are those that govern or determine that the performance of a person is considered competent, in this section the results that are considered contributory and significant (critical) are expressed to achieve the expected results in the item statement, and the reference to the quality that these results must have. Performance criteria express what is expected of the performance of a competing element and how the result or performance is expected to be, as the case may be.
In order to demonstrate that the performance criteria are intended to express a result and the quality of said result, it is considered appropriate that the performance criteria are expressed with a phrase (as short as possible) consisting of:
Field of application This normative component of the element of competence is intended to establish the different circumstances that a person will face in the workplace and are, therefore, in which the domain of competence of the person will be tested..
In this case, for reasons of economy, care must be taken that the fields of application established for a certain element of competition are necessary and sufficient to assess competition. The existence of redundant Fields of Application, in addition to complicating the process of evaluating competition, makes it more expensive. The Field of Application is expressed in two parts: The field category and the classes corresponding to each category. Obviously, the categories to consider must be considered critical and, therefore, they must be mutually exclusive; classes in each category must also be mutually exclusive.
Evidence for performance
Proof that you are competent necessarily requires providing evidence (which is indisputable evidence) that you do indeed have the competence to carry out the activity referred to, in this case, by the title of element of competence. In order for the evaluation of competence to be as objective as possible, the evidence has been considered to be derived from performance.
In the Mexican model, it is considered that the Standardization Committee, focused on the elaboration of a standard, defines the type of evidence necessary for the demonstration of competence and establishes the amount of evidence required.
Evidence for performance (continued) By its nature, evidence for performance has been divided into:
- Direct evidence for performance Evidence by product
Direct evidence, which could be considered in principle as having to do with the technique used in the performance of an activity, requires observation and analysis of the work process of the person evaluated. Evidence by product refers to the identifiable and tangible results or products, which can be used as references to demonstrate that the activity was carried out. Obviously there must be a close relationship between the evidence for performance and the performance criteria.
In the definition of evidence, it must be maintained as a principle of action that by their nature both types of evidence can complement each other in order to ensure that competence is possessed.
Complementation must take into account not only the technical aspects but also the economic aspects that affect the evaluation.
Evidence of knowledge
In this section, the knowledge and understanding requirements that the person being evaluated must satisfy to demonstrate that they have sufficient and necessary bases for the efficient execution of the different performances that have been considered as parts of the element must be accurately stated. In general, this section can be said to refer to theories, principles and cognitive skills that allow a person to have a starting point for systematically effective performance. The way of making knowledge evident must consider that it - at work - does not occur in isolation, but integrated with performance itself.
It should be borne in mind that knowledge is applied to achieve something and, therefore, the achievement of that something can, on multiple occasions, be sufficient to identify that knowledge is held (and what is more, that it is applied). In these conditions, when preparing the Technical Norm of Labor Competency, it must be specified that knowledge -additional to those already incorporated into the evidence for performance- must be demonstrated.
Evidence of knowledge (continued) Evidence of knowledge is complementary to evidence for performance; it should not be considered as a substitute for it nor should it - when the level does not justify it - favor that the evaluation tries to delve into the scientific aspects that underlie the expected performance and that, surely; It does not have a worker that has been done in practice, as is often the case in countries like ours (Latin Americans).
The following figure tries to express the relationship between the element of competition and its regulatory components.
Relationship between the element of competition and its regulatory components
What does a Standard represent?
From a cursory analysis of the normative components for an element of competence, it can be derived that a Technical Norm of Labor Competence, referred in this case to an element of competence, is an instrument that enables the identification of the labor competence required for the Carrying out the activity referred to by the element statement, since in said norm the following are specified and identified:
- What a person should be able to do (it should be noted that this aspect is related to the statement of the element) The way in which it can be judged if what he did is well done The conditions in which the person must demonstrate his competence The types of evidence necessary and sufficient to ensure that what you did was done consistently, based on effective knowledge.
From another point of view, a Technical Standard of Labor Competence is the means to make evident the knowledge and abilities of a person in the performance of an activity. This consideration implies that the Technical Norm of Labor Competence must allow and favor the recognition of three ways of expressing the capacity of a person:
- The ability to obtain quality results with the efficient and safe performance of an activity. The ability to solve the problems associated with a productive activity; problems -or situations- that may be technical or social in nature. The ability to transfer the knowledge, abilities and skills that you already possess, to new contexts or work environments.
What does a Standard represent? The Technical Norm of Labor Competence must favor that the person being evaluated acquires a clear conscience of her knowledge in the broadest sense of the word and that she understands not only the know-how, but the knowing how to be and the knowledge that allows her
Obviously, for the standard to be effective, it is necessary that it has been defined, as has been said, by consensus, which means that the results of the work of the group responsible for preparing it must be subject to a consultation process in the productive sector to which the standard interests.
Consultations acquire special relevance for performance criteria and fields of application, since by their nature, these components are those that identify the form and conditions that determine competent performance; In these circumstances, it must be fully assured that they will be accepted by the productive sector to which the standards refer.
In order to give an idea of what is the process that leads to obtaining the reference standards (Technical Standards of Labor Competence in Mexico) for the identification of labor competence, a diagram of this process is presented below.
Process
The competition identification process includes:
Competition identification process
b) In search of the elements of competence: Functional Analysis
In the previous section, it was mentioned that the reference for a Technical Standard of Labor Competence is an elementary productive function called the element of competence.
What are the elements of competition?
How do you find them?
In an attempt to answer one of the previous questions, it could be said that an element of competence (unlike -for now2- of the elements in Chemistry) does not have the character of being absolute; An element of competence is considered to correspond to a simple productive function, that is, it has the characteristics of being achievable by a person.
Element As it is intended that the element of competence serves as a technical reference in the determination and definition of the normative components that configure the pattern to identify labor competence, the element of competence must refer to the result expected to be achieved in the activity being carried out.; In this sense, the function tends to differ from the concept of task, which normally refers to the what, the how and with which the work is carried out.
Function
The function must express the result of the activity carried out in such a way that it is not circumscribed in a specific labor context; in this way the function is less changeable than task 3.
On the other hand, the function favors - leads to - the identification of different capacities that are put into practice when carrying out a certain activity.
For example, if the person is said to "open and close the valves in a line of a certain liquid", only the implementation of his physical capacity for work is recognized; while if it is identified that a person is capable of "keeping the flow of liquids in a pipeline regulated" it is recognizing their ability to interpret the different circumstances in which the flow may occur and the ability to decide how to act against flow conditions to keep it regulated, in addition to its ability to operate the valve. The opening or closing of the valves, if applicable, is the result of an intelligent decision, not a simple mechanical act.
Detection of elements of competition
The elements of competition are immersed -you could say- in the productive activity, but they must be detected 4 and for this it is necessary to have the technique (and patience) that allows achieving this.
On the other hand, the elements of competition (now if like the chemical elements) are not presented in isolation but are generally combined to form a compound productive activity, with significance in the labor context. Something like what you have in the case of chemical elements happens: oxygen and hydrogen combine to give the compound water that we all know and in which we do not recognize any of the elements.
In order to detect 5 the elements of competence that appear in a complex productive activity, such as those that are normally evident in productive organizations, we have the Function Analysis or Functional Analysis that consists of, by successive disaggregation of the productive functions, get to find those simple functions, achievable by a person, which are the elements of competition.
It is considered that the Analysis of the Functions, in this case the productive ones, is the analogous to the one made for the purpose of identifying the value of products. The analysis of productive functions has, in principle, the same implicit purpose: to identify the functions that are necessary for the achievement of what would be called the Main Purpose, that is, to recognize -by their relevance- the added value of the functions.
Functional map As in the case of analysis of the value of products, in the case of productive functions, the result of the analysis is expressed by means of a map or tree of functions.
The map -or tree- begins with the main purpose identified (corresponding to what would be the integral product in the case of value analysis) and the disaggregation or breakdown of this main purpose gives rise to the different branches that end in the moment in which the elements of competition are found (rather, detected).
The basis of the functional analysis is the identification, by means of the breakdown or disaggregation, and the logical ordering of the productive functions that are carried out in a company or in a representative set of them, depending on whether the search for elements of competence for the configuration of Technical Standards of Labor Competence specific to a certain company or to a national coverage system.
c) Principles of Functional Analysis
The principles or criteria that support the application of functional analysis are basically the following three:
Main purpose
Functional analysis applies from the general (the recognized Principal Purpose) to the particular.
The functional analysis concludes - as said - when the analyst is faced with the simple productive functions considered as elements of competition. It has been preferred to use the term "from general to particular" and not the "top to bottom" that is sometimes used, since this last expression may give an idea that the functional map corresponds, or that at least it would be related, with the hierarchical structure of the labor organization, which should not happen.
Discrete functions
Functional analysis should identify delimited (discrete) functions separating them from a specific work context.
In other words, those functions that have clearly defined their beginning and their end must be recorded on the map (they must not be continuous). On the other hand, the functions should not be referred (as is the case of the tasks) to a specific work situation since, if this happens, the possibility of identifying the transfer capacity will be restricted and this would be registered within the framework of a certain job. An aspect that complements the above and that is useful for the expression of functions is to maintain in all cases (you can obviously make exceptions) a uniform grammatical structure for sentences that express functions. The generally accepted grammatical structure is constituted by:
This form of expression is intended to ensure that:
- The results of the activity are identified. You have a precise idea of what is being done and that the breakdown maintains a logical relationship between a level of disaggregation and its antecedent. Consistency is maintained in all projects establishing technical standards for Labor Competence, giving the possibility of comparing and transferring them in a wide coverage system. Cause - consequence The breakdown in the functional analysis is carried out based on the cause-consequence relationship.
In disaggregating the functions, it is useful to identify what must be done (the results of the activity) to achieve the expected result in the function that is being disaggregated.
It should be noted that a functional map should not be confused with a process flow diagram. The expected results that must be expressed in the functional map are those obtained by the activity of people, not by the operation of production equipment.
The breakdowns derived from a certain function must be sufficient and necessary to achieve the function that gave rise to them; consequently, the breakdowns, first, must be mutually exclusive and, second, the integration of the breakdowns must have full correspondence with the function that originated them. It should be borne in mind that the breakdowns are the constituent parts of the origin function and, therefore, the sum of the breakdowns should be neither greater nor less than what is broken down. For example, the breakdown of a possible function, that of "defining the specifications for the processes" would be broken down as follows:
Define specifications for processes and competencies
Cause - consequence
(continues) It should be noted that repeated functions should not appear on the functional map. If this should happen, the way in which the breakdown principle was applied based on the cause-consequence relationship should be examined. The functional map can be considered to be the graphic representation of the production system model and, as in any system, there are not, nor should there be, duplicate functions.
The analysis of the functions concludes when those that correspond to the elements of competence are identified, that is, those that are achievable by a person.
Therefore, the elements are said to correspond to the last level of disaggregation and are considered to be the last and most precise specification of the labor competence. An aspect to consider when trying to detect a possible element of competition is that there is clearly the possibility of linking the expression
"The person must be able" with the statement of the element of competence.
If this link is neither technically nor grammatically possible, there will be no reference for the construction of the normative components that support the identification of labor competence, thus compromising the quality of the process and, consequently, of the Standard to be carried out..
The result of a functional analysis, as has been said, is expressed in a map -or tree- whose structure assumes the general form that is presented in the scheme that appears in the following figure, in which the elements of competence -functions performed by one person and therefore are presented as the last level of breakdown - they appear shaded.
Functional Map Scheme
Functional Map Scheme
Other recommendations:
Validation
In a national project for the elaboration of Technical Standards of Labor Competence, it is obligatory that the functional map corresponding to a certain main purpose be carried out by a small group of people who gather a deep knowledge of the work that leads to the achievement of the main purpose and full mastery of the functional analysis technique; however, given that the functional map will provide the elements of competence to configure, from them, the normative components, it is convenient - (it could be said) - that said functional map be put to the consideration of the productive sector in which the existence of the selected main purpose.
The consultation will provide information that makes it possible to consider that the functions identified are relevant - they have value - in the workplace and, therefore, the references for the identification of labor competence (the standards) have a basis that allows their application to be considered feasible.
d) Prospects and applications
Outlook
Properly managed functional analysis turns out to be a useful tool and an effective support for the detection of those simple productive functions, carried out by a person who have been called elements of competence and, as we have seen, constitute the technical part of a structure. to identify job skills. The elements of competence provide the labor reference for which it is intended - in a system - to identify the competences.
It should be noted, however, that just as in Nature the chemical elements do not appear isolated, but in more or less complex compounds, in the Nature of Work, the elements of competence do not appear isolated either.
The elements of competence, as has been said, correspond to functions that can be performed by a person, which does not mean that a person has the responsibility of carrying out one and only one of those elementary functions. It is common practice for a person at work to carry out activities that integrate several elements, sometimes up to 15 or 20. The integration of elements of competence, with the purpose of establishing the correspondence with the activities as they are structured in the world labor, gives rise to what has been called as job qualifications.
Application
Labor qualifications are, therefore, a set of elements of competence integrated in such a way that it corresponds to complex productive functions that are normally carried out in the labor sphere. It can be considered, in general terms, that there is a certain parallelism between job qualification and profession when it considers the ability to exercise a more or less wide range of related jobs.
For practical purposes, ratings are structured based on subsets of elements of competence called units of competence.
In a general scheme of identification of labor competence, the element is the starting point since it is for it that the normative components have been specified. Unity, however, is the first step in the system of formal recognition of labor competence; it is certifiable.
The following figure outlines the relationship between the element of competence, unit of competence and job qualification, noting that in the latter concept, in order to have the greatest possible flexibility, it has been considered that they could exist -for purposes of identifying competence Labor - compulsory units of competence and optional units of competence.
In the event that the existence of optional units in a qualification is considered, the group of experts generates the proposal of what they can be and how many of the total considered must be accredited to obtain the certificate corresponding to the qualification.
Integration of qualifications based on elements of competence
Integration of qualifications based on elements of competence
Download the original file
