In a previous post Competency based TNA (the top-down approach) I have mentioned that to make use of Competency based TNA you should have three documents:
The evaluation matrix helps evaluating the employee level of a certain competency. This helps assessing the gap which you will design your program to close.
This file (Competency Based TNA Show case) explains more in this regards.
Competency based Training Needs Assessment (TNA) or I might call it the top-down approach for efficient training implementation. Is something might be known long time ago, but I was trying to implement this approach and I couldn’t find an exact implementation methodology until recently I have figured out that I should start designing this framework if I may call it “framework”, starting from the top to down. I have developed the Competency Dictionary, Competency Level Matrix and the Competency Evaluation Matrix. The Competency Dictionary will work as the base for this framework, where all required leadership/technical competencies that we wants to have in this dept. are there!. The Competency Level Matrix is a simple matrix that shows the required level of knowledge for each competency for each job. The last one is the Evaluation Matrix which is there to be used on an annual bases to evaluate and measure the actual level of the competency that the job incumbent indicates.
By doing this all parts of the puzzle is brought together to be a tool for efficient training. How training! as I said the top-down approach! now we know exactly what kind of competencies we would like to have, also the level of competency for each job and how much of it each employee shows. The next step is to close the gaps using the competency mapping method and raise the current level provided by employees using the right training program.
The e-learning as an evolving field yet not broadly trusted way of delivering training among many organizations and cultures. Decision makers still not convinced if the e-learning is a training methodology that can compete the old times classroom or it is just a complement solution. Among the evolving societies e-learning still not trusted enough due to some facts. Personally I have a BA in Business Administration – Systems track from the Open University which uses an electronic solutions. I believe it was a good learning experience for me and I have learned a lot from it not on the academic level only it was about the whole experience. The courses taught was up to the standards I expected and even more.
These days everybody can go around and learn from variety of sources unbounded to time or geographic location. This type of learning is more broad and generic which I expect to give each one of us the knowledge he requires to be an effective member of the society. Imagine that you have done your degree in a certain field and you did not allow yourself to be exposed to other topics other than things that comes to you in the face. This will makes us poor in other knowledge areas. The e-learning somehow encourages the learner to learn more broadly. Which in my view gives everyone the opportunity to learn about a lot of things in different fields since you can learn at anytime anyplace and costless. Your motive will be the curiosity which everybody has. This curiosity will push you every time to learn in anything which increases the level of awareness and the overall education. Without the e-learning as a solution this learning experience will be difficult to commence.
Always remember if you don’t see the elevator next to you, you will keep using the stairs.
Have you ever asked yourself what my capabilities are? I was wondering what my capabilities are for years. This question is not easy to answer although it seems to be an easy one. I always thought a senior role than mine is easy to do. I look at my manager’s position reckon… why I’m not in his place yet. After a while I was given a bigger role which its objectives were not clear enough. By then I have started to do things as I see it is the right thing to do. Later on I realized the successful professional should work out the added value. Holding senior job isn’t about performing the tasks as mentioned in the job descriptions. In fact there is no job description explains exactly what should you do and shouldn’t. It only gives you some hints about what is your job profile. At the end you are responsible of performing this job and if you do it this way (reactive) you will be good for some time and keep the area out of troubles but you will not be creative and won’t grow. The key is by being proactive performing things before someone triggers it. Continue reading
When I look into the development stages of human resource management I find it developing rapidly and in stream with organizations size and profit. Of course the new communication style and globalization has its own effects too. What came to my mind after attending couple of seminar in this regards which was conducted in Saudi Arabia is the rapid changes happening in this field ! and what is the real engine behind it? I have asked myself many questions but I couldn’t reach a fair answer.
Checkout this quotes:
From the Introduction to Human Resource Management by Ashly Pinnington & Tony Edwards
UK Personnel Management / HRM Timeline
1800s
Some paternalist employers such as the Rowntree and Leverhulme families strongly concerned about the welfare of the workforce; health and education, for example, were seen as part of their responsibility. But employees’ welfare primarily the concern of outside institutions and individuals, particularly the church, charities, and welfare workers.
1900-38
Formation and consolidation of personnel management as a professional body. Introduction of more systematic record keeping and management of the human resource. Role of ‘looking after’ workers, previously the domain of women, develops respectability at the higher levels of responsibility as ‘man’s work’. Continue reading
Sometimes I pause for a while and think about the training function of the bank I work for. I ask myself whether the role we provide for employees through the training center is enough or not? It seems that it is a simple question to answer !! but I question myself more and get involved systemically in the situation and try to put myself in the shoes of the stakeholders. In fact I realized that to define the role of the training function we might need more and more definitions than what we can think of in the first moment. Continue reading
People who are involved in business and mostly production type of business knows well a rule called the “economic of scale”
Economies of scale is a practical concept that is important for explaining real world phenomena such as patterns of international trade, the number of firms in a market, and how firms get “too big to fail”. Economies of scale is related to and can easily be confused with the theoretical economic notion of “returns to scale”. Where economies of scale refer to a firm’s costs, returns to scale describe the relationship between inputs and outputs in a long-run (all inputs variable) production function. A production function has constant returns to scale if increasing all inputs by some proportion results in output increasing by that same proportion. Returns are decreasing if, say, doubling inputs results in less than double the output, and increasing if more than double the output. If a mathematical function is used to represent the production function, returns to scale are represented by the degree of homogeneity of the function. Production functions with constant returns to scale are first degree homogeneous; increasing returns to scale are represented by degrees of homogeneity greater then one, and decreasing returns to scale by degrees of homogeneity less than one.
This rule talk about cost minimizing by increasing production. Continue reading
When someone is trying to do something that he or she never did before, usually they give it a try. This gives them the opportunity to learn how this thing happens. You are learning by doing when you do such action. Whenever you look into people work and try to understand the process they follow you are drawing the picture in your mind. This is called imitation or learning by observation. These types of knowledge gaining are congenital everybody has it. Once you go deeper in this process you start developing yourself to gain more adequate tools and technique to improve your knowledge and sense of things. Organizations performing business or providing service wants to have more of their resources which mean optimal use of resources. Always remember you can build a house out of wood as you can pollute the environment by firing the same. How you use your resources is your call, but since organizations by definition would make rational use of their resources they usually think of using the resources the best way they can do. It is always known that if you try to fix something it might cost you more if you did not fix it properly, which in fact organizations cannot afford. They simply want to use their resources optimally which employees and time is among it.
