What is Competency?

What is Competency

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On the job training is an essential part of a company and employee’s development process.

It is a crucial process to ensure employees are not only completing training but understand the material and perform to expectations.

Competency is the capability to apply or use the set of related knowledge, skills, and abilities required to successfully perform ‘critical work functions’ or tasks in a defined work setting.

Competency often serves as the basis for skill standards that specify the level of knowledge, skills and abilities required for success in the workplace as well as potential measurement criteria for assessing competency attainment.

Competency is a measure of both proven skills and proven knowledge.

A competent person is defined as a person who is appointed or designated by the employer to perform specific duties based on knowledge, skills and abilities.

Clarifying Experience

A worker may have a lot of experience, even years spent performing certain task(s)

but may not be fully competent, as they may have picked up some bad habits over time, or was not originally properly trained etc. Competency levels can be ascertained by assessment of knowledge, skills and abilities. As a counterbalance, prior task performance records (evidence based), and levels of experience a worker is deemed to have, should be a consideration.

Recognition of Prior Learning

A record of prior learning is an assessment to confirm the skills and knowledge

that a worker has gained previously through formal or informal training, or

through life or other work experiences. For example; if a worker has been