Competence management is not exactly synonymous with EHS management. The purpose of a competence management system, after all, is “to control in a logical and integrated manner a set of activities within the organisation that will assure competent performance in work” (read more here). But competences are still a central part of safety operations. ‘Competent’ in this quote can mean as much as ‘safe’, after all.

Let’s look at the following situation:

An employee is embroiled in a minor incident during welding. It’s unclear what caused the incident at first, but what is clear is that the employee’s actions created an unsafe environment. Root cause analysis identifies that the employee is missing the proper certificate to perform the type of welding they were doing.

Safety professionals will surely recognize this. By law, the company employing the person in the example is at fault. They are obligated to provide training when the performed function requires it. At the same time, they are obligated to employ personnel certified to perform said function. Providing training as a corrective measure is the necessary response here, whichever way you look at it.

But taking corrective actions is not how many safety professionals would want to handle the above situation. Relying on lagging indicators means you’re always running behind, after all. Preventive measures would be far preferable, to try to stop the occurrence from happening in the first place.

The soft-touch

In the example above, a sense of responsibility and a communicative attitude could have had a good chance of preventing the incident from happening. Imagine the worker had signaled they didn’t know how to perform the weld or had requested an experienced and certified colleague to perform the task instead.

Functional skills are often tracked via certifications valid for a limited time before re-certification is required. This works well for tasks such as operating machinery or welding, but not so much for softer skills. How does one go about promoting critical thinking, for example? Operating a forklift is different from communicating efficiently, yet both contribute to the same safe environment.

Putting more emphasis on soft skills and soft learning, better integrated with your operational reality, is the way forward here. But how does one go about instilling these competences in employees?

Here are a few strategies you can employ in your company:

• Mentoring:

Providing continued training for experienced employees is a necessity, and they will always be the best source of information for new hires. Create a system in which inexperienced employees can learn by seeing and doing, and grow their knowledge into certifiable skills. This is as much about embedding soft training into your operations as about aligning your operations with the competences you need.

• The feedback loop–in both directions:

Really, communication is everything. Find ways to set up a feedback loop with your employees and create (digital) platforms that can function as a go-between. The key here is to create an environment where communication is not simply allowed, but a natural result of the organization. Lead by example, but also listen attentively.

Encourage open and constructive communication between employees as well. It may be a good idea to invest in communicative training and team building.

• Learning culture:

This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about creating a learning culture. This can be an effective way of minimizing risks and alerting of dangers in the workplace. The attitude towards learning you display can have a positive effect on the attitudes of employees, which in turn can foster a want for learning in others. Organize training, but not just for the sake of training.

PiCK And Choose

Competences, both certifiable and soft skills, are the key to strengthening companies’ safety and quality cultures. They are the main measure for how securely employees perform on the shop floor. They are also an intrinsic part of behavioral safety while ensuring efficiency, functional safety, and proper responses to abnormal or emergency situations alongside it.

By focusing on less perceptible skills, or soft skills, you’ll be able to get a better grip on the goings-on in your facility and create a supportive framework for both learning and safe work.

Want to learn more about how competences can be tracked, managed, and planned? Feel free to get in touch with us, or read up on what our software can offer.

Photo by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash.