Development of Strategic Individual Competences

Abstract

In today‘s world, the word “competence” is widely used in human resource management. Individual’s work results and finally business success depend on his/her knowledge and skills i.e. competence. Changing business management paradigm and increasing role of individual in organization rise radical changes in priorities identifying the need of competences and their development. A competence can be defined as the entirety of knowledge, abilities, skills and attitudes, which are necessary for an individual to work effectively in particular working environment. This can be professional, social and conceptual competences. Professional competence in the long-term perspective is very dynamic due to fast changing technologies, but on the other hand, it can be easily defined and acquired quickly. Particularity of the professional competence is determined by the individual’s functional labour activity, whereas social and conceptual competences are general competencies that are necessary for an individual despite his position in the company. As a rule, namely these competences become strategically significant in the rapidly changing business world, especially while talking about managers, which enable the organization to acquire advantage due to the human factor. However the research conducted by Drejer (2000) shows that traditionally education system is orientated to the formation of professional competencies, named as “tough“; whereas the attention to the “soft” competences (social, conceptual) is not significant. Development of these strategic essential competences falls on enterprises and individual. Analysing the development of strategic individual competences in individual as well as organization level the priorities of competence formation and development are changing recently – the development of employees’ competence based on the organizational needs is being changed into the development of competence with the priority to individual’s needs. Successful development of strategic individual competences in individual level is based on the principal attitudes, integrating the perception of the need of individual competence development, deep inner motivation to educate himself or herself and preparation to the changes, bethinking of the role of organization modelling the guideline of strategic competence development and promoting the application of effective methods to develop competences. The article deals with development of strategic individual competences on organizational as well as individual level.