(part of the Guidelines)
Background to InLOC – competence in the world of employment
Job application and recruitment
In recruitment, and in job application, attempts are made to match an individual's CV with a job profile. HR systems often use job descriptions based on skills, competencies and therefore on a competency framework.
Employers often look for qualifications, experience and specific skills or competences. Qualifications may be seen to be associated with particular competences and attitudes. Academic qualifications imply areas of knowledge, while vocational qualifications may cover both practical knowledge and practically assessed abilities. However, there is often a mismatch between what employers are seeking, and what is associated with qualifications, particularly academic qualifications.
Employee performance and competence management
Employee performance management is commonly based on the idea of a competency framework, and on learning outcomes related to these competencies, and job profiles.
Many organisations regard competence development of their employees as vital to their success, particularly in view of changes caused by economic situations, innovations, integration of technologies in the business process or delivery of new products or services.
Competence management is often integrated into the workflow of the organisation's activities, including recruitment, expertise, promotion and evaluation. The competences of individuals are identified, managed and evaluated, and job profiles are created, involving combinations of practical knowledge, skills and competences in addition to interpersonal and behavioural ones. Evidence supporting claims to attainment of competences is gathered and kept. This helps in the composition and processing of competence profiles.
Enterprise collaborative solutions, community and professional social networks
Several collaborative approaches in enterprise are using extended employee profiles including competences. This helps for team building, for identification of expertise, and for managing collaboration requests by other employees.
Many organisation are now also using an internal social network, or community, often on an existing online professional social network. These communities are also based on the idea of competency, expertise, groups, micro-community and team/project workgroup building for more efficient teams and a better exploitation of the resources/competences of the organisation's employees. As well as self-described competences, for example LinkedIn has a section on "Skills & Expertise" based on standardised descriptions, not individual ones, so that the same skill or expertise heading can be related to many different people.
See also further reading on work competences.