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Professional competence can be defined as utilizing the knowledge, experience and know-how to work towards the goals of an organization. Competence management helps people do this by showing how employees can use their competence and how they can develop their competence. Comparatively a new segment in human resources area, competence management has become a popular and an important method vital for achievement of an organization's goals.

To enable competence management, it is important to get the support of the management, which can be done through management coaching, as they will be the one in charge of directing the competence management strategy. They would have to evaluate each of the employee's competencies but also establish a set of the competencies needed for every task the company might need to perform. If you don't feel that your management can handle that task, there are professionals out there who will do it in your case.

Determining the competencies needed for a particular task will enable you to mobilize the adequate employees and use them at the best of their capacities. By using business coaching, try to have your employees realize the importance of competence management and get them involved in it.

So, employees will be able to figure out what they need to do and what they need to know to do their jobs most efficiently and advance the company's interests most effectively. The best things about this is that the boss's intervention isn't necessary- employees will be able to determine what training they need by themselves.

To obtain an insight of your employees competencies and measure the level of their skills, we've already suggested professional help, but there are numerous other simple tools that you may use. You could use a form for each employee listing their capacities. Another possibility would be a centralized database accessible to everybody through the company's network, listing each employee's competencies and also the competencies needed for the tasks the company needs to do.

Competency management is the best way to manage the human capital of your company and will also give you great return on investments. It is a also a way to get the employees involved and interested in their job, by offering them a chance to participate actively in the fulfillment of your company's objectives.