BUILDING AND GENERATING A CREATIVE AND FLEXIBLE WORK FORCE: KEY COMPETENCIES

The purpose of this paper is to concentrate on the competencies required for a flexible work force. It will therefore provide a frame of action and some concrete ideas on how a company can develop the key competencies needed to create a flexible work force. These competencies will provide part of the capacity for solving the challenges posed by our work environment. The paper is divided into four sections. Section one concentrates on the definition and identification of competencies. Section two isolates the competencies that are critical in order to have flexible workers. Section three defines technological competence as key to the success of today’ s work force. Finally , the paper provides a frame of reference for the design of an action plan from the point of view of the (any) administration. Paper sponsored by Tech Net World Bank BUILDING AND GENERA TING A CREA TIVE AND FLEXIBLE WORK FORCE: KEY COMPETENCIES Intr oduction Today’s world is in constant turmoil. News of companies mer ging, closing, restructuring or being created reaches us daily at the breakfast table. The main issue is longterm survival and, to achieve this, companies need to reduce response time, increase flexibility and provide excellence in service. The rapid pace of change imposes a demand on the work force: the need constantly to adapt . Constant adaptation amounts to being skilled at solving problems, inventing new ways to approach situations and implementing new ideas. Creativity (generating new ideas) and innovation (implementing those ideas) are now essential in every sector , and are no longer exclusive to “innovative” companies. Companies have to deal with clients who constantly change their requirements. As a result, they have a constant need for problem solvers. In addition to this, workers have to perform in an uncertain world in which new paradoxes seem to be emer ging constantly . They have to find solutions to new problems, and companies have to rely on their employees’ ability to find the solutions most likely to provide competitive advantage. W e are living in an age of paradox in which “conflict and disagreement push employees to question existing premises and make sense of their experience in a new way” [13]. How does this fit with the European worker? Is our work force up to this challenge? Is our education system providing companies with a work force that has the necessary capabilities? The answer seems to be no. The education system is failing, and companies have to invest in retraining their work force, no matter what age, to give it a new profile. Even more painfully , the education system is creating widespread illiteracy in the use of technology. In a world that is becoming more technologically complicated every day , we are creating a work force that may not have the key knowledge, or competencies, to survive. To add to this gloomy picture, unemployment is now the number one concern of European governments. The fallacy that European companies will be able to create the 20 million jobs Europe needs has gained currency . Clearly this is quite impossible. W e are facing a crisis with clearly recognizable symptoms, but the diagnosis is inaccurate. In our view, the root of the problem lies, to a lar ge extent, in the inadequacy of European workers’ capability profile and in the crisis of the sociological model of the company as a provider of long-term employment. Governments and administrations will evidently have to find new solutions to the old problem of unemployment, putting the emphasis on providing the individual worker with the backup and infrastructure he/she needs in order to generate his/her own response to the problem. Some of us believe that the answer is not directly to provide employment, but lies more in the administration’ s ability to generate demand and market infrastr ucture, which will lead eventually to the creation of employment. In 1992, the company in char ge of the World Fair in Seville (1), Spain, was considering how to use the event to create employment in Andalusia. Many new companies had been created just to provide the advanced services required by the Expo, services with very low demand, at the time, outside of this type of singular event. For instance, a number of virtual reality companies were set up to produce advanced, very expensive, one-shot shows for the Expo. We were commissioned to draw up recommendations on how to proceed. W designed a framework for the Andalusian government and the Spanish central government to create an infrastructure of demand that would lead to the creation of jobs in the area in the future. Thus, the answer [16] was not to generate direct employment, but to generate a set of (specially demand-oriented) infrastructure conditions that would motivate and sustain the new activities. This type of proactive approach requires a great deal of coaching, assistance and education from all levels of government. However , we believe that the answer does not lie in the old solutions, but in new and imaginative ideas for an old problem. A different profile of capabilities and competencies needs to be developed in the European work force. Europeans also need to acknowledge their need for survival skills and labor independence. Every worker needs to develop entrepeneurship and intrapreneurship capabilities. Companies cannot just lay of f people. They should provide workers with the capabilities they will need to succeed in the world they have been thrown into. T me is against Europe and we need fast answers. W e cannot indulge in academic debate when the population of Europe is immersed in an unemployment crisis. Some companies have already turned their backs on their governments and are finding their own solutions to these problems. Nonetheless, a coordinated ef fort by all institutions is needed to meet the great challenge of developing a competitive work force. This paper will concentrate on the competencies required for a flexible work force. It will therefore provide a frame of action and some concrete ideas on the development of the key competencies needed to create a flexible work force. These competencies will provide part of the capacity for solving the challenges posed by our work environment. The paper is divided into four sections. Section one concentrates on the definition and identification of competencies . Section two isolates the competencies that are critical in order to have flexible workers. Section three defines technological competence as key to the success of today’ s work force. The final section provides a frame of reference for the design of an action plan from the point of view of the (any) administration. I hope this paper will 2 (1) The World Fair took place in Seville in 1992. The Spanish Government planned it in such a way as to respond to local development needs. The main purpose of the Fair was to act as a driving force for renewal and economic growth in Andalusia. EC regional development funds were invested in new roads and a highspeed rail link between Madrid and Seville. The Fair brought together people from all over Spain, representing a portfolio of knowledge and experience that could have been the key to developing the region. Unfortunately, much of it was wasted and lost, partly owing to the lack of vision of central and regional governments. give the reader food for thought and help fuel a discussion relevant to the practical implementation of the ideas it contains. Competencies: definition and identification Webster ’s dictionary defines competenceas “physical, mental, or legal power to perform”. Work competencies have been considered relevant for centuries and can be traced back to the medieval apprenticeship system [8]. However , th word “competence” has recently acquired a status in which its meaning seems to have become dif fus . It hassuffered the same fate as the terms “quality” or “technology”, whose meaning seems to have been lost, or at least to have reached a state of confusion. McLagan [8] analyzes the way the word “competence” is used in different contexts and with various meanings. T able 1 shows her analysis of the meaning of “competence”, the characteristics of each meaning, and the level of detail. Table 1. McLagan’s definition of competence It is easy to see how any discussion of competencies will be dif ficult if the word is given different meanings. Prahalad and Hamel [14], in their classic article “The core competence of the Corporation”, define core competencies as “the collective learning in the organization, especially how to coordinate diverse production skills and integrate multiple streams of technologies . ” (page 81). McLagan and Prahalad share a common point of view . McLagan, focusing on the individual, stresses the notion of ability , claiming that competencies are mainly the collection of knowledge, skills and abilities (“KSAs” she calls them) to perform a given task. Prahalad, 3 Meaning of "competency" Characteristics Level of detail Task competencies Job activities Subtasks Result competencies Abilities Subcomponents Output competencies: results for clients Ability in an output Subcomponents of outputs/standards to define them further Knowledge, skills and attitudes Subject matter, process abilities, attitudes, values Identification of knowledge, skills and attitudes Superior performer differentiators People's abilities with roots in intelligence and personality. Distinguishes superior performers from others Define intelligence and personality Attribute bundles Collection of knowledge, skills and attitudes Identification of knowledge, skills and attitudes focusing on the corporation, talks about the union (or “bundle”, as McLagan calls it, with reference to individuals) of skills and technologiesto attack problems. The similarity is obvious. Skills, abilities and technologies are simply knowledge at dif ferent levels. Skills and abilities are “concrete knowledge that allows the performing of a ta