Francisco Nunes, Luis Martins and Henrique Duarte

Survey commissioned by the Portuguese EU-Presidency
–EUPAN - Human Resources Working Group-  December, 2007

SUMMARY

This report presents the major findings regarding competency management in European Union public administrations. The study was carried out during the Portuguese EU-Presidency. This research project was designed to know the current status and the development perspectives of competency-based management (CBM) in the European Union public administrations. Based on 24 member states responses to a survey we can arrive at the following conclusions:

• CBM, aiming to improve HR systems, is one of the change strategies used by some member states. The initial experiences started in the 1980's (Sweden and UK) and even now some countries are developing their competence frameworks (for example Portugal).
  
  
• The competence movement is complex and multifaceted. So, as expected, the 13 European Union member states that revealed the adoption of CBM programmes are using their own definitions. In spite of the differences, the central themes of CBM are covered by national definitions: focus on people instead of the job, the concern for performance, the need of behavioural evidence, the work as the context in which competencies are revealed, and the existence of several types of competencies.
  
  
• State members are introducing CBM in the context of major changes and trends, such as downsizing, the changing role of managers or the introduction of changes in HR practices. In fact creating a more adequate method for selection, development, assessment or rewarding is the main problem addressed by CBM. Member states that see themselves as less public administration and more responsive are more willing to introduce CBM.
  
  
• The process of implementing CBM tends to follow the tradition of centralization of each country's public administration. In the same vein, the prevalence of CBM all over public administration is different, but we notice a tendency to a selective approach. This approach can be characterized by the focus only on certain types of entities/bodies, an incremental implementation process and the focus on some professional groups and HR functions. Managers and senior and technical staff are the preferred targets.
  
  
• European public administrations show a high sensitivity to the CBM approach. In fact they are using both job and organizational variables as a source of competences. This is completely aligned with the person and macro-level orientation of competence movement. However, results are not clear on the methodological rigour used in the CBM programmes. References to specific competence identification methods, both from the individual and organizational side, are not very frequent.
  
  
  
• Countries that are already using CBM are highly satisfied with the experiences. All 13 countries show a positive global evaluation of CBM. All of them report a tendency to improve or to broaden existing CBM programmes. Once again member state respondents are aware of the major benefits for employees, managers, and organizations.
  
• To employees CBM can foster personal development and a better understanding of what is necessary to achieve high performance. The motivation role of CBM is highlighted in this population.
  • The benefits for managers are more technical. CBM programmes are giving managers more adequate decision making criteria and tools in order to effectively manage selection, evaluation and development. But CBM is also providing mangers a better frame of reference to manage people.
  
  
• For organizations, CBM is providing better instruments to perform conventional HR practices, such as selection, evaluation or development. But CBM is facilitating the match between organization requirements and people. This last benefit is entirely in line with one of the central features of competence notion.
  
• European public administrations are facing the common difficulties encountered by most organizations that decided to implement CBM: the difficulty in specifying competencies and determining their verification level and problems about having a shared understanding about what competencies are and how to implement CBM practices. This might be the reason why benchmarking plays such an important role in competence identification.
  
•  We would like to stress the relevance of these two concrete difficulties because they are at the heart of the CBM and make the difference between this approach and a more functional one. As we already mentioned, one of the more recognized advantages of CBM, the possibility to link individuals to organizations through company goals and values, is strategic value. Performing correctly the inference process from organizations to competencies and their respective verification levels is crucial if we really want to benefit from CBM.
  
  
• The same can be said about the shared understanding about what competencies are and how to implement CBM. Competence movement can be a powerful communication tool aligning individuals and organizations, but they turn out to be only effective if different stakeholders share the meaning of particular competences. Finally CBM has to be implemented. Otherwise everything remains the same, with very slight changes in labels and terminology.
  
  
• In this context the development of internal HR and management competencies seems to be fundamental in order to effectively use CBM. One has to remember that respondents describe the HR role in respective public administrations as predominately administrative and less strategic. The changing role and competences of HR public professionals seems to be fundamental in order to increase the effectiveness of HR practices.
  
  
• However, we don't think CBM is "the" best approach to manage people. CBM is a fad, like many others in management. But management fads, if taken seriously, can provide a good pretext to experiment new practices and retain the most adequate. They are good instruments in reducing the knowing-doing gap, a common problem in organizations in general and in the public sector in particular. Effective private organizations can be characterised by having a contradictory nature: they are very conservative in their purpose and core values and, at the same time, very innovative in experimenting management practices and strategies. Public administrations are purpose and value based organizations. Generalised experimentation is what is lacking.
  
  
• Concerning the competencies management for older employees European public administrations can assume a leading role. According to results even if nothing is seriously been done in order to manage older employees, in future member states will be at least somewhat involved in HR several practices for this target.
  
  
• Effective HRM systems in the private sector are often described as composed by high involvement work practices such us employment security, selective recruiting, high wages and incentive pay, employee ownership, information sharing, participation and empowerment, self-managed teams, training and skill development, cross-utilization and cross training, symbolic egalitarianism, wage compression, and promotion from within. Most of these practices are present or can be improved in public administrations. Their implementation is what is at stake. CBM can help in this area.
  
  
• Other approaches put emphasis on the alignment nature of effective HR. Vertical alignment is the link between HR practices and the nature of organization vision and strategic goals. Horizontal alignment is the requisite of achieving a consistent approach to HR by developing a coherent set of practices. Action alignment refers to the need to translate HR policies into real practices. Because the novelty of CBM is the integration of organizational level variables into individual profiles and tends to be used in sets of HR practices instead of particular ones, it can be a good approach to assure both vertical and horizontal alignment. But going form rhetoric to practice is essential if we don't want to jeopardise the merits of CBM.
  
• In short, if the trend towards a more responsive model of public administration is taking place, then individual civil servants should be prepared to act accordingly. In this context CBM can play an important role in providing organizations with a basic set of enabling competences to a more effective role in society. After all, one of the most recognized contributions to the competence movement took place in a public context and member states who implemented CBM are very satisfied.
  

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Change Management