Strategic management of labor competencies

The work we present below describes the documented procedure for integrated management with a strategic approach, of the labor competencies system in an important food production company in the Cuban capital. It emphasizes the continuous, systemic and integrative nature of this process.

It is described step by step how managers and specialists must face the management of labor competencies from a strategic, flexible and contextualized approach; taking into account the particularities of each organization and each of the base organizational units. In addition, the article details the actions that need to be carried out to guarantee adequate procedures for identifying, evaluating and validating the labor competencies of the key jobs in the organization under study.

The proposed procedure is the result of a continuous process of interaction and exchange with a group of experts from the organization, managers and workers of experience and recognized prestige; within the framework of a consultancy aimed at creating the bases for the implementation of the Cuban Family 3000 Regulations (Integrated Human Capital Management System) and the subsequent certification of Cuban Standard 3001.

Introduction

The documented procedure for the management of labor competencies within the framework of the implementation of the Integrated Management System of Human Capital, Cuban Standard of the 3000 family, constitutes a moment of vital importance and methodological significance.

This procedure is called to establish the requirements and main steps for the integrated management, based on a strategic approach, of the labor competencies system; the elaboration of the Profiles of Labor Competencies for each job and the subsequent certification of the same in the workers.

In shaping the procedure described here, the particularities of the main work activities carried out in each of the organizational areas of the company and the predominant organizational culture in them were taken into account.

Labor competencies constitute the integrating factor of the entire human capital management system and is understood and accepted by the scientific community in our country, as stated in the Cuban Standard: “Synergic set of knowledge, skills, experiences, feelings, attitudes, motivations, personal characteristics and values, based on the demonstrated suitability, associated with a superior performance of the worker and the organization, in correspondence with the technical, productive and service demands. It is an essential requirement that these competencies are observable, measurable and that they contribute to the achievement of the organization's objectives. ”

Although there are dozens of other definitions, which are frequently found in the diverse bibliography that deals with the subject; This, which precisely the Cuban Standard 3000 proposes, seems to us to express precisely the very essence of the category of labor competencies.

The elements shown here are the results of the joint work achieved so far by a team made up of external consultants and internal consultants, within the framework of a collaborative organizational consultancy to a major food production company in the Ciudad Habana province.

Development

The consultancy work for the implementation of the Cuban Standards of the 3000 family (Integrated Human Capital Management System), in the organization under study, began with the application of a Diagnostic Technology developed by the Knowledge Management Company and Technology (GECYT) (a company attached to the INNOMAX Business Group of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment of the Republic of Cuba), together with the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), which is intended to measure in organizations the levels reached in three fundamental indicators, which are essential requirements for the execution of the standards implementation process. These indicators are: External Integration, Internal Integration and Strategic Integration, achieved by the organization.This last premise constitutes a synthesis of the first two.

The application of the checklist that makes up the aforementioned diagnostic technology, resulted in a value below the minimum required in the premise of "strategic orientation"; and the minimum in the other variables, which make up the checklist to measure the external integration of the entity. The results obtained showed that the organization under study, at that time, was not in a position to initiate actions to apply the Integrated Human Capital Management System.

Once the diagnostic tool was applied and it was possible to identify the main problems and causes that were affecting them, the organization itself considered preparing an action plan and working expeditiously on eradicating them, which due to their significance and characteristics, could be considered of a high impact and a high possibility of short-term success with low costs, to reach the required level on the premise of "strategic orientation" and obtain the necessary recommended value, in the remaining variables measured by said instrument.

Only once the approved contingency plan was fulfilled to solve the problems identified and selected as the main ones, it was decided by the external and internal consultants, to apply the Diagnostic Technology again and continue working on the construction of the procedures, which The Cuban norm of the 3000 family indicates for its implementation.

The diagnostic tool used also allowed the organization to evaluate the behavior of the different modules, related to the Integrated Human Capital Management System, especially the labor competencies module, which is part of the 9 modules (or subsystems) analyzed, and which characterize in general the level of internal integration, that is, the degree of interrelation of the processes of Human Capital with the Organizational Strategy. The assessment made of the behavior of the labor competencies module also allowed identifying and evaluating the problems related to it, and reaching a consensus regarding corrective measures to solve them.

As can be seen in the table, which shows the results obtained from the applied tool, the labor competencies module is given an average rating by the managers of the organization, the workers, technicians and specialists of the Management of Human Resources (coincidence of criteria is shown in this), which places said module below the occupational health and safety subsystem and above the selection and integration and training and development modules. All of the above is displayed in graph No.1. The deficiencies that appear in this module affect, in one way or another, the remaining subsystems of human capital management, since it constitutes the base and integrating subsystem of all management,and it interrelates in its functions with all the other integral parts.

Graph No. 1. Comparison between the evaluations of the modules of the Human Capital Management System in the company under study.

Source: GECYT Diagnostic Tool.

The application of the diagnostic tool also allowed in the process of debate, discussion and consensus to identify the main problems related to the application of the labor competencies module. The internal consultants, following the outline of the applied checklist, defined the following problems related to this module:

The key job competencies of the company, the processes of the main activities and the key jobs are not defined. Teamwork is not developed, project management is not implemented, nor is management by competencies. The rest of the modules are affected by the fact that the labor competencies in the organization are not identified, validated, evaluated and certified.

The identified problems allowed the top management of the organization and the internal consultants to emphasize the need to work on the development of a documented procedure for the management of labor competencies in the company, in such a way that it would make it easier for everyone to understand step by step what to do to implement this module at the organization level and in the context of its base organizational unit.

Description of the company's Labor Competencies Management procedure.

A fundamental stage within the entire conformation of the documented procedure is the Planning Stage, in which the main bases and the fundamental directions of development of the process in general, where we are going and what we want to achieve with the implementation of the management of labor competencies throughout the organization.

In the framework of the consultancy, as part of the planning stage in the implementation of the labor competency management procedure, the internal consultants defined the objectives, principles and fundamental premises that define the starting points, political bases and the desired state to be achieved with the implementation of this module in the company.

It is important to point out that the process objectives defined here have an important strategic function, since they serve as a referential framework for the subsequent evaluation of the relevance and impact of the implementation of the procedure for the management of labor competences in the concrete results of the performance of organization, and especially productivity, quality and psycho-social conditions of work.

The team of internal consultants also decided to define a system of premises to take into account before undertaking any action to identify, evaluate and certify labor competencies, or define (as required by standard 3001) the distinctive competencies of the organization and processes of the main activities.

The management of labor competencies is treated here as a process that encompasses each and every one of the entity's organizational areas and their jobs. As it is considered a process, the main entrances and exits were identified, corresponding to the particularities of the entity studied. The definition by the internal consultants of the inputs and outputs of this procedure is closely related to the need to constantly evaluate the quality of the input, on the one hand, and the result achieved (output), on the other.

As part of this analysis, the basic competencies to guarantee the management of this procedure were also identified in a group work session, which would guarantee the organization to select, evaluate and prepare the human resource (specialist, technicians, managers, officials), in charge of planning, organizing and executing the actions aimed at the identification, evaluation and certification of labor competencies; especially to the group of internal experts that was formed for this purpose. These competences were subsequently recognized and validated by the Organization's Management. 10 competencies that are necessary to mobilize in the management of the documented procedure discussed here were defined in the organization under study.

In the planning stage, it is also important that the organization define the Labor Competencies Committee at the organization level for the validation of the same, as well as the group of experts that will be in charge of executing the technical work that will lead to done the proposed project. The internal consultants in this case raised the need to form Temporary Committees for the validation of competencies in the base business units (UEB) and in the other functional organizational units. In the consulting process, the composition, functions and responsibilities of the committees and groups formed were defined.

Identification of the competences (Step by step procedure).

to). Identification of the organization's distinctive competences.

The development of skills at any level, constitute a way by which the organization uses to achieve various objectives. Its definition at the organizational level is nothing more than the recognition that these exist in the culture of the company itself or need to be built, so that the substantive processes are aligned with the strategic projection, thus generating competitive advantages.

Through the development of participatory techniques, 17 distinctive competences were identified, which were analyzed and processed in group sessions and with the participation of experts, only 9. To apply the list reduction technique, the magnitude was considered. of the impact of distinctive competencies on organizational strategy.

Taking into account the dependence of the degree of relationship that the competences have with the vision of the company, 3 groups of distinctive competences of the organization are proposed, classifying these as:

Type of Distinctive Competencies	Distinctive Competences of the Organization
Current Operating Competencies	Sense of belonging Effectiveness in Decision Making
Development or Tactical Competencies	Change capacity Technical-professional knowledge
Desired or Strategic Competencies	Strategic thinking Market leadership Teamwork Relationships Focus on system

Source: self made

With the recognition of the fundamental processes of the company, the disaggregation of competition at the process levels can be continued. In this sense, the competency-based management approach penetrated the design of the processes, seeking a greater correspondence between organizational, process and labor competencies.

b). Identification of the competencies of the processes of the main activities.

As a result of the work carried out within the framework of the consultancy and based on the application of the Strategic Objective Matrix / Impact of the Competencies of the Main Processes / Impact with the client /, Time (I), Resources (R), It was possible to arrive at not only practical results, associated with the design of the documented sheets of the macro-processes, but for the first time a procedure was documented for this company that allowed to arrive at definitions on the competences of the key processes.

In this sense, and to determine the competencies of the processes of the main activities, the following methodological steps were taken into account:

I. Be clear about the purpose of your organization: Mission, Vision, Values. Organizational objectives and competences.

II. Analyze the content of the process (Macro or micro) specifying in them its scope, sequence of activities that comprise it and operational description of each stage and / or activity.

III. Determine the existence of critical points of the process in the main stages and / or positions; understanding by them the moment (s), which generates (n) more tension in the proper development of the process and decisively influences its success.

The critical points of the process can be associated, fundamentally, with 3 reasons:

Relationship: load –capacity; Level of complexity (technological and human) of the activity and / or Quality – cost ratio incurred in the activity.

IV. Analyze the basic functions associated with these stages and / or positions in which they are necessary.

V. Determine the main activities included in the set of functions of the position must be operated by the staff, whose competences and skills slow down or lighten the critical zone (critical point) of the process.

SAW. Identify the distinctive competences of the process, evaluating the impact of the competences associated with critical points on the results of the process as a whole. This assessment allows considering the presence of skills that are not characteristic of a position but the result of the flow and interaction of the stages of the process.

With the application of the methodological procedure previously described, as well as with the unquestionable support of the tool: Matrix of Strategic Objective / Impact of the Competencies of the Main Processes / Impact with the client /, Time (I) /, Resources (R) are determined the competencies of the main processes in the organization. Each process was identified by internal consultants with a certain number of distinctive competencies.

Macro-processes	Number of Distinctive Competences of the Process
Productive	6
Human Capital Management	5
Commercialization	6
Logistics	6
Management of the Direction	7
Quality management	5
Technical service	5
Design and development of new products	5

The identification and analysis of the competencies of the main processes within the organization under study allowed us to establish the referential and practical framework that must be taken into account to identify the job competencies of the positions in each organizational unit from a process approach..

The distinctive competencies of the main activities processes identified here, accepted and validated by the organization's work groups and labor competencies committees were oriented according to the general strategy of the company.

Once this stage of work was completed, as part of the process of managing labor competencies in general, the procedure related to the identification of the labor competencies of the positions or jobs began, which is described below in its different steps.

c). Procedure for identifying the job skills of the position in the organization under study.

As an initial step in this procedure was the formation of the families of positions and jobs that would be studied for the importance of these within the processes that occur in the organization (they may be present in several processes at the same time and in several organizational units). The intervention schedule was also established according to the strategic importance of the positions for the company (key jobs).

The group of experts was created to be in charge of the organization and execution of the entire process and the implementation of its corresponding procedures.

Construction of the Labor Competencies Profile of the key jobs.

A group of experts together with the company's Human Capital Department have been working on the construction of the competency profiles of the entity's key positions. The skills profile constitutes the documented job description and is the result of all the actions and techniques applied in the process of identifying job skills. In the Cuban Standard 3000: 2007 it is defined as the “Document that describes the competencies required for a position and expresses the relationship of the strategic objectives and goals with the capacities that the organization's personnel must develop. This profile is expressed in a language of key results and does not necessarily understand or describe all the functions and tasks of the position, it only focuses on those fundamental elements. ”

The competency-based management approach replaces functional analysis, which is characterized by a high operational sense to describe jobs or positions. The differences that exist between both approaches allow us to infer about the need for the implementation of labor competency management as the main method for the analysis of labor contexts.

In the process of building the competency profile of the positions, a consensus was reached that the fundamental objective or mission of the position or job analyzed would be described initially, and then 3 levels would be worked on in the description of the job competencies:

Generic labor competences (first level). The list of generic labor competencies is used, an instrument prepared by Professor Mc. Harvard University's Clelland, reviewed and refined by the consulting work of other prestigious researchers and consultants, for more than 30 years.

In the case of organizations, where there is very little experience in working with job competencies and there is also no specialized and qualified personnel, this instrument can serve as an important frame of reference and guide in the work to be carried out. At least in the case at hand it was.

From the list of generic job competencies, the group of experts select those that are considered important and necessary to take into account for the definition of adequate performance and superior performance in the analyzed job or position. Generic competencies are those that, better than any other, describe the performance required for the position or position. It is recommended to identify between 4 or 5 of said list.

To this list that is successfully organized, are added those others that do not appear in the relationship, but which are considered by the group of experts as important for the description of the profile of competencies of the position under analysis. A reduction of the list can be made with the group involved, and other specialists from the Human Capital Department can be involved.

Subsequently, the Group of Experts carry out the interviews of critical incidents, taking into account the following recommendations for the analysis of each position:

Two groups are formed (whenever possible) based on the selection of workers who have shown adequate performance in the workplace and those who have achieved superior performance. (A ratio of 5 DS / 3 DA is recommended.)

Within the framework of the interview, each interviewee is asked to describe in detail several important situations in their work in which things went well for them. In the interview process, a battery of questions prepared jointly by external and internal consultants has been used as a basis. Experience has shown that the interviewer cannot adjust only to the questions of the indicated instrument, he has to look for the way that the interviewee clearly and freely provides him with the information he needs in the simplest and most concrete way possible. For this it is necessary to create an environment of trust and mutual respect.

Once this process is completed, the group of experts organize and integrate all the information received for its transcription as objective encodable definitions.

Taking into account the generic labor competencies and the information collected as part of the interviews carried out and the work of the expert groups, they define the competency indicators (second level) ordered on an ascending scale that allows guiding and interpreting performance results.. One level of scale describes adequate performance and the other describes superior performance. (The order of the indicators at each level of scale is a function of: the intensity of the action, the impact and the level of complexity of the action). This constitutes an important part of the process of operationalizing generic competences.

The ascending scale is constructed based on the data and information collected in the Critical Incident Interviews, carried out to the occupants of the position and by the opinions of the group of experts (they constitute ideas, actions and interactions).

Once the labor competency indicators have been defined, it is necessary to identify the evidence of performance (third level) for each of the levels of the scale. Evidence of adequate performance. Evidence of superior performance.

Evidence of performance is tangible results derived from performance (Concrete evidence resulting from performance). It makes it possible to specify labor competencies at a higher level and that their measurement is possible not only by specialists, but also by managers, officials and workers at the base. These evidences are integrated into the work objective system of the organizational area.

As part of the procedure for managing labor competencies, the Communication element was also defined.

Actions to improve communication in this regard are an inseparable part of this entire procedure. Provide information in a planned way, share meanings, build common objectives, relate its members in order to directly or indirectly influence the behavior of its members to achieve the projected objectives and facilitate relations with workers based on the essential principle that guarantees their participation in decision-making, compliance with the organization's strategic objectives and in the search for solutions to problems.

In the framework of this procedure, it should be clear to each worker that the performance evaluation will be carried out according to the Profile of Labor Competencies of the job they occupy and not according to rare and not shared criteria.

Procedure of Certification of the Labor Competencies of the workers.

Process that allows, through the corresponding evaluation, to recognize and certify by means of a document, the skills demonstrated by the worker for a certain position, regardless of the way in which these skills were acquired.

The certification actions of the labor competences of each worker will be carried out by the Expert Committees or the Income Committee (according to the legislation that governs the organization) of each organizational area, always advised by specialists from the Human Capital Department.

Evaluation and control of the competence management process.

The evaluation process of Labor Competency Management will cover each of the elements that make up the process in an integrated way. In order to issue the evaluation criteria, the expected result standards will be taken into account in the productive environment, the quality of production and services, the behavior and general performance achieved by the workers, and their level of satisfaction with the design and Management of the Competency Profile.

System of Indicators for the Integrated Management of Labor Competencies

The Job Profiles Profiles pay tribute to the mission, vision, strategy and objectives of the organizational unit and the organization in general. The Job Competencies Profile of the job was arranged with the worker who occupies it, in the framework of the integration process, and was accepted by the latter. The Profile of Labor Competencies is filed accordingly in the corresponding files, it is provided by the leaders of the organizational unit the pertinent follow-up and is updated as necessary.The revision and updating of the Labor Competencies Profiles is carried out, as indicated in the procedure sheet. The means, tools and techniques for the certification of labor competences are clear, simple and transparent.The procedures included in the entity's Integrated Human Capital Management scheme are coherent and adhere to the model of labor skills management implemented in the organization.It can be clearly evaluated to what extent the worker mobilized job skills to reach a given level of performance. The degree of compliance with the objectives of the procedure is measured.

The following should remain as records in the organization and in the organizational units as work tools:

System of Distinctive Competences of the Organization. System of Key Competences of the Main Processes. Profiles of Positions Competencies in each of the UEB

Conclusions

□ The proposed documented procedure for the identification, validation, and evaluation of labor competencies in the organization under study meets the requirements of Cuban Standards 3001 and 3002: 2007.

□ The documented procedure constitutes an important methodological tool, which explains step by step each one of the important moments in the identification, validation, and evaluation of labor competencies at the different levels of the organization.

□ The procedure is characterized by its flexibility, so that it can be adapted in its implementation to the particularities of each of the Base Business Units and other organizational units of the entity.

□ The procedure guarantees the possibility of aligning the labor competencies system with the organizational strategy of the studied company.

□ The proposed procedure is consistent with the structure of the Integrated Human Capital Management System and directly pays the other component modules of it.

□ The documented procedure will have no value, if its implementation does not constitute part of all the strategic management of the organization, especially in its organizational base.

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