Competences management as a key issue for adaptability

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CONSTRUCTIVE ADAPTABILITY AND ITS DIMENSIONS
Gandía, June 2006
Seminar Constructive adaptability

• Competences management as a key issue for
  adaptability

Francisco J. Gracia Lerín
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Scheme

• 1. Main characteristics of companies environment
  at the beginning of XXI century
• 2. Demands for companies
• 3. Demands for workers
• 4. Implications for human resources management
• 5. Actions to promove adaptability and employment
  maintenance

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Characterístics of companies environment
I. Main characteristics of companies
environment...
TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT
GLOBALIZATION
DYNAMISM
COMPETITIVENESS
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Demands for companies
II. Demands for companies
COMPETITIVENESS
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Demands for companies
II. Demands for companies
García Echevarría (1997)
... the debate should not center only in the
subject of workforce costs, but on the efficiency
of that workforce in the production processes
... workforce in our country has to increase
productivity in figures between 30 and 40 per
cent
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Demands for companies
II. Demands for companies
DYNAMISM
Examples

• outsourcing
• non-permanent contracts
• larger easyness to fire
• employees multifunctionality
• part-time workers
• geographical mobility

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Demands for workers
III. Demands for workers
HIGHER COMPETITIVENESS
ABILITY TO INTERACT SUCCESSFULLY IN A DYNAMIC
ENVIRONMENT (ADAPTABILITY)
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Higher competitiveness implies
III. Demands for workers
that it is not enough to have KAS to perform
the job reasonably, but that also competences are
needed to get an EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE
to have a wide set of COMPETENCES
that it is not enough to fulfil with the
assigned tasks but that futhermore the workers
must be able to INNOVATE and carry out
spontaneous behaviors beyond the role obligations
to contribute to organizational goals (EXTRA-ROLE
BEHAVIORS)
to be highly MOTIVATED
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Adaptability/flexibility implies
III. Demands for workers
that it will be facilitated if the employee has
a wide set of competences (POLIVALENCE)
that there are some KEY COMPETENCES (ability to
learn, attitudes to learning, uncertainty
tolerance, attitudes to change...)
employees INVOLVEMENT/IDENTIFICATION with the
company project
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Crisis of the inherited situation
IV. Implications for human resources management

• From job-based organizations to the organization
  without jobs
• From a for ever job to the multiple jobs along
  life

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Pillars for present human resources management
IV. Implications for human resources management
HRM POLICIES AND PRACTICES
LINKED TO ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY
QWL/IE PARADIGM
CONSENSUS ZONE FOR STAKEHOLDERS
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RHM linked to organizational strategy
IV. Implications for human resources management

• The need of linking HRM to organizational
  strategy has been pointed out insistently since
  the 90s
• This link should have two-ways
• HR practices must be alligned with organizational
  strategy and contribute to it
• Organizational strategy must be designed taking
  into account employees competences

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QWL/EI paradigm
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Contrasts with the traditional paradigm which
• Emphasizes technical efficiency and racionality
• Considers hierarchical control as necessary to
  insure efficiency and control
• Predominant approach at the beginning of XXth
  century
• The most typical representant is the taylorism

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Yesterday...
IV. Implications for human resources management
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QWL/EI paradigm
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Assumptions
• Power should be shared with the lower levels in
  organizations
• Individuals at lower levels need to be given some
  autonomy
• Importance of open communication and moving
  operation information to lower levels
• Importance of developing the skills and abilities
  of people (not only for performing a job)
• Strong emphasis on moving rewards based on
  organizational performance to the lower levels

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... and today
IV. Implications for human resources management
nowadays, really competitive companies cannot
afford to waste any fragment of talent (Rosabeth
Moss Kanter, expert on Change Management)
A DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHY ABOUT EMPLOYEE
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Consensus zone for stakeholders
IV. Implications for human resources management

• According to the stakeholder theory, the
  interests of different groups (employees,
  customers, community) must be satisfied
• HRM, since the QWL/EL paradigm, emerges as a
  consensus zone for the different groups
• HRM must be carried out in the wider context of
  the stakeholder theory, and the corporate social
  responsibility

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A challenge to build a new psychological contract
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Psychological contract refers to the reciprocal
  perceptions of obligations among the parties in a
  contract
• The parternalistic psychological contract
• Employees loyaty and fulfilment was reciprocated
  through job security and a career whithin the
  organization
• Nowadays
• Flexibility (in terms of temporary contracts,
  cut-downs) threatens this balanced exchange
• A paradoxical situation companies cannot
  guarantee job security, and at the same time,
  they are demanding to employees high levels of
  commitment and performance (not only loyalty and
  fulfilment)

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How to balance the exchange relations?
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Offering and enhancing employability
• It refers to the ability of an individual to find
  and mantain a job
• It implies that the company invest in employees
  development
• It guarantees what has been termed dynamic
  security
• Taking into account the employees differential
  contributions in personnel decisions (contract
  renewals, retribution, promotion)
• Making different psychological contracts with
  different employees groups (permanent,
  temporaries, women, migrants)
• The clarification of expectations and the
  consideration of the specific needs of each group
  are core

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Individual actions
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Constructive adaptability and flexibility
• Realistic expectations about labour market, work
  and organizations
• Social networks
• Competences for job search (f.i., how to behave
  in a personnel selection interview)
• Other personality trades (f.i.,initiative)

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Dimensions of Constructive Adaptability
2. Por qué surge PROACTIVE?

• Solving problems creatively
• Dealing with uncertain/unpredictable work
  situations
• Learning new tasks, technologies and procedures
• Interpersonal adaptability
• Cultural adaptability
• Physically Oriented Adaptability

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Personnel flexibility
V. Actions to promote adaptability and employment
maintenance
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Personnel flexibility
V. Actions to promote adaptability and employment
maintenance
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Personnel flexibility
V. Actions to promote adaptability and employment
maintenance
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Personnel flexibility
V. Actions to promote adaptability and employment
maintenance
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Personnel flexibility
V. Actions to promote adaptability and employment
maintenance
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Organizational actions
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Diversity management
• To enhance work-family balance
• To invest in employees competence development
• To be and remain competitive along time
• Corporate Social Responsibility

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To enhace work-family balance
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Flexitime
• It refers to every timetable system in which the
  employee has a certain degree of freedom to
  choose different issues related with worktime
  (starting and ending hours, working days, number
  of hours/week...)
• It is one of the most useful techniques to get
  work-family balance
• the reason the employee has control over working
  time and consequently, also over non-working time
• Part-time work
• It is scarcely used in our country
• Double function It contributes to create
  employment and to advance in balancing
  work-family areas

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Part-time in UE-15
IV. Implications for human resources management
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Training
IV. Implications for human resources management
Performance feedback
Outdoor training
Behavioral modelling
On-the-job training
Job rotation
Role of supervisor
DEVELOPING COMPETENCES
Self-directed groups
Coaching
Team working
Task/project assignments
Mentoring
Higher autonomy
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IV. Implications for human resources management
ANTICIPATORY
PROACTIVE INTERACTIVE
PROACTIVE
BASED ON COMPETENCES
FOR PERSONNEL DEVELOPMENT
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Anticipatory means that...
IV. Implications for human resources management

• The starting point is the analyses of changes
  that potencially will take place in the future
  (short, medium and long term) in the environment
  and in the company

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Proactive and interactive because...
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Not only tries to anticipate the changes but also
  tries to influence on the future
• Instead of understanding that the future is not
  previously determined, it is believed that the
  company contributes to build the future trough
  their decisions and actions

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Based on competences means that...
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Competence is the key concept for human resources
  management

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For personnel development implies that...
IV. Implications for human resources management

• Training is understood as only one whithin a
  wider set of practices to develop employees
  competences