Once again HR professionals from diverse organizations came together to give their personal and professional reflections on “Enhancing Employees’ Competencies” through HR Kurakani. Mr. Shailendra Raj Giri, Managing Director of Real Solutions Pvt. Ltd. had welcomed all participants and started discussion with brief summary of HR Kurakani held on previous months.
Following is the summary of HR Kurakani on the topic Enhancing Employees’ Competencies:
Competencies- Combination of K, S, A, A, A, I, A
Enhancing employee’s competencies is the important aspect of HR personnel in the organization. Employees are competent if they possess good knowledge, job skill, ability to perform well, good attitude and aptitude. Moreover, interest and age factor of an employee matters a lot in the effectiveness of performance.
Role of Recruitment
The participants emphasized that there is a necessity to identify and analyze the employees’ competencies level during recruitment. HR personnel face difficulties in balancing the competencies held by the employees. It is generally observed that the employees performances gradually declines when their existing KSA are underutilized and/or when their competencies are insufficient to perform the task. Therefore, recruiting right person at the time of hiring plays an important role later in enhancing their competencies and in retention.
Effective Performance Appraisal
It was discussed that effective performance appraisal facilitate competency mapping within the organization. The participants added that HR should maintain database of each employee competencies. It would help in identifying gap in skill, knowledge and other abilities among employees. Moreover, it would give clear picture of each employee and help in designing trainings and other fulfilling development needs. It was further added that the level wise analysis can be done to analyze the competency gap. It would help in designing training and development program that support in enhancing the competency level of employee. The participants also added that there can be tremendous improvement in performance when pre-training and post training feedback are given to the employees.
Proper Orientation
It was discussed that HR personnel and the concerned department head/immediate supervisor should clearly communicate newly appointed employees about his/her job responsibilities, required core competencies, career planning, expectations, etc. during orientation. Everyone agreed that orientation is a powerful method in order to grab the exact work and their competencies can be developed and enhanced by providing training from the very beginning.
Supervisors’ Role
The participants emphasized that the supervisor’s role is important in enhancing employees’ competencies. Everyone agreed that the output from competencies gap analysis done by immediate supervisor/HOD is effective in finding the true picture of department desired/required competencies level. Similarly, supervisor has responsibility to guide and motivate his/her subordinates, to identify and analyze the competencies required in the department and to recommend his/her subordinates for training and development programs. All participants agreed that supervisor having HR elements (mentoring, coaching, performance appraisal) leads to the enhancement in competencies of an employee.
Proper Documentation
Documentation of each work process from starting to closing phase performed by employee provided a good reference to HR personnel in required competencies for the particular job position. Moreover, it is useful in identifying the skill gap in employees which later can be fulfilled by particular training programs. Thus, documentation also helps in enhancing the employee’s competencies.
Learning Events
Learning events such as knowledge sharing series demonstrate their skill would bring belongingness in the organization. Furthermore, the sharing session would help employees learn from each other and transfer the learned traits into their strengths. Hence, it contributes in enhancing their competencies.
To conclude, the discussion led towards various ways to enhance employee competencies such as effective recruitment, proper orientation, supervisors’ mentoring and coaching, effective performance appraisal, competency mapping, proper documentation and opportunities of participation in learning events. In addition, other topics were discussed such as 360 degree performance appraisal, retention trend in different sectors, unions etc. The program ended with commitment to learn more from each other to make HR recognized and develop HR KURAKANI as a valuable learning platform for HR.
