Competency-Oriented Human Resource Development

Competencies as abstractions of work-relevant human behaviour have emerged as a promising concept for making human skills, knowledge and abilities manageable and addressable in a wide range of application areas. From a management point of view, they provide a more adequate approximation of human performance factors than the notion of ”knowledge” in traditional knowledge management approaches as they can represent a set of skills, knowledge, and abilities that belongs together and as competencies go beyond mere “knowing” towards work-relevant action. For the traditional training (and human resource development) community, competencies allow for operationalizing learning goals and outcomes and thus can serve as a control instrument. And competence management approach aim at connecting the individual and the organizational perspective via the competency abstraction.

Competency-driven approaches are facing fundamental challenges:

  • A well-defined common understanding of each competency needs to be developed and enforced across various departments or even organizations (for organization-independent competency frameworks).
  • On the technical level, various systems and services involved in HR, training, and knowledge management need to be semantically coherent so that competency-driven
    approaches can live up to their holistic expectations.
  • The crucial trade-off in competency modelling needs to be solved: the more accurate, realistic and fine-grained considered competencies are, the more complex management and controlling tasks become.

As a reference model, we developed the Professional Learning Ontology, formalizing competencies as a bridge between human resource development, competence and knowledge management as well as technology-enhanced learning.

Furthermore, we have developed a reference process for competency-oriented human resource development.

People

The approaches were developed by Christine Kunzmann (a freelance human resource development expert) and Andreas Schmidt (working at FZI Research Center for Information Technologies).

Bibliography

2008

Andreas Schmidt
Enabling Learning on Demand in Semantic Work Environments: The Learning in Process Approach
In: Jörg Rech and Björn Decker and Eric Ras (eds.): Emerging Technologies for Semantic Work Environments: Techniques, Methods, and Applications, IGI Publishing, 2008

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2007

Andreas Schmidt, Christine Kunzmann
Sustainable Competency-Oriented Human Resource Development with Ontology-Based Competency Catalogs
In: Miriam Cunningham and Paul Cunningham (eds.): Expanding the Knowledge Economy: Issues, Applications, Case Studies. Proceedings of E-Challenges 2007, IOS Press, 2007

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Abstract Competency-oriented approaches are gaining ground in human resource development. Key technology to cope with the complexity of fine-grained approaches are ontologies. By having a formal semantics, many competency-related task can be partially automated on a technical level. In this paper, we want to show that ontology-based approaches also foster the sustainability of such approaches on an organizational level by providing connections between the operational and strategic level. We present a reference ontology and a reference process model which have been applied in a hospital case study.

Christine Kunzmann, Andreas Schmidt
Kompetenzorientierte Personalentwicklung: Auf dem Wege zum Lernen bei Bedarf
ERP Management, vol. 2007, no. 1, 2007, pp. 38-41

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Abstract Personalentwicklung als klassische Unternehmensfunktion hat in den letzten Jahren zunehmend ein Image-Problem bekommen. Im besten Fall wurde sie noch als Verwaltungs- und Organisationsabteilung für Mitarbeiterschulungen verstanden, im schlimmeren Fall als menschenfreundlicher Luxus begriffen, den man bei der nächsten Krise auf ein Minimum zurückfährt. Zudem sind andere Bereiche wie Wissensmanagement und Kompetenzmanagement entstanden, die sich ebenfalls mit dem individuellen und organisationalen Lernen und den Kerndomänen der Personalentwicklung beschäftigen, ohne dass sie unter deren Zuständigkeit fallen.

2006

Andreas Schmidt, Christine Kunzmann
Towards a Human Resource Development Ontology for Combining Competence Management and Technology-Enhanced Workplace Learning
In: Robert Meersman and Zahir Tahiri and Pilar Herero (eds.): On The Move to Meaningful Internet Systems 2006: OTM 2006 Workshops. Part I. 1st Workshop on Ontology Content and Evaluation in Enterprise (OntoContent 2006), Lecture Notes in Computer Science vol. 4278, Springer, 2006, pp. 1078--1087

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Abstract Competencies as abstractions of work-relevant human behaviour have emerged as a promising concept for making human skills, knowledge and abilities manageable and addressable. On the organizational level, competence management uses competencies for integrating the goal-oriented shaping of human assets into management practice. On the operational and technical level, technologyenhanced workplace learning uses competencies for fostering learning activities of individual employees. It should be obvious that these two perspectives belong together, but in practice, a common conceptualization of the domain is needed. In this paper, we want to present such a reference ontology that builds on existing approaches and experiences from two case studies.

Christine Kunzmann, Andreas Schmidt
Ontology-based Competence Management for Healthcare Training Planning - A Case Study
In: 6th International Conference on Knowledge Management (I-KNOW 06), Graz, 2006

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Abstract With the increased pressure towards economic efficiency, hospitals and other healthcare institutions need to reengineer their internal organization and processes. This challenges human resources development with increased efficiency of training in general. We have developed a competence management concept for training planning at a big German hospital with a special focus on critically analyzing the suitability of state-of-the-art ontology-based approaches for the area of nursery. Experiences from the case study show the general feasibility, but also crucial issues summarized in this paper.

Andreas Schmidt, Christine Kunzmann, Ernst Biesalski
Systematische Personalentwicklung mit ontologiebasierten Kompetenzkatalogen: Konzepte, Erfahrungen, Visionen
In: Norbert Gronau and Jane Fröming and Simone Schmid (eds.): Fachtagung Kompetenzmanagement - Schulung, Staffing und Anreizsysteme, Potsdam, 5.10.2006, GITO, 2006

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Abstract Ontologiebasierten Kompetenzkatalogen kommt im Rahmen des Kompetenzmanagements eine Schlüsselrolle zu. Auf methodischer Ebene dienen sie dazu, Personalentwicklungsstrategien konstruktiver zu diskutieren sowie strategische und operative Ebene besser miteinander zu vernetzen. Auf technologischer Ebene kann derselbe Katalog bzw. eine unmittelbare Verfeinerung/Erweiterung zur (Teil-)Au-tomatisierung von Personalprozessen genutzt werden, um so kompetenzbasierte Personalentwicklung effizienter zu gestalten. Gezeigt wird dies an zwei Beispielen: dem integrierten Ansatz der DaimlerChrysler AG, Werk Wörth und dem Ansatz zur Bildungsbedarfsplanung und -steuerung am Städtischen Klinikum Karlsruhe. Abschließend soll ein Ausblick gegeben werden, wie Kompetenzkataloge auch zur Unterstützung des Lernens bei Bedarf (z.B. durch Generierung von individuellen Bildungsempfehlungen) am Arbeitsplatz genutzt werden können (am Beispiel des Forschungsprojektes Learning in Process).

Christine Kunzmann, Andreas Schmidt, Friedbert Mager
Kompetenzen managen: Wie man Fort- und Weiterbildungen in der Krankenpflege gezielt und zukunftsorientiert plant.
krankenhaus umschau, vol. 75, no. 8, 2006, pp. 712-714

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