Chipping Away at Compliance: Competency, Training, and Induction

Posted 3 mins ago by Sarah Glover 8 Minute(s) to read

Do your people know what they’re doing? Can you prove it?

It’s important that you can answer both of these questions in the affirmative—and that’s the basis of a competency management system. Internal and external training, inductions, competency records, coaching mentoring, and more all contribute to the bigger competency picture: your organisation as a well-oiled and resilient machine.

The benefit of competency verification and training

Having a solid understanding of where things stand regarding competency and induction is very helpful as you make plans for employee progression. Business owners and managers should be able to identify both current skills and knowledge and ability to develop knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) required for either the role or the organisation.

In addition to being a helpful tool, knowledge—or perhaps verification—of each employee’s competency can be a legal requirement. Many roles, particularly in trades and manufacturing, involve use of equipment or procedures which require certification to ensure the safety of all involved. Some laws are specific, and other are less so. Some broad legislated requirements include:

In the Employment Relations Act: s4 (1A) (b), it lays out the “duty of good faith”—requiring the parties to an employment relationship to be active and constructive in establishing and maintaining a productive employment relationship in which the parties are, among other things, responsive and communicative.
The Health & Safety at Work Act: s36 states that a PCBU must ensure “the provision of any information, training, instruction, or supervision that is necessary to protect all persons from risks to their health and safety arising from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking.”

Specific industries and equipment will have more specific requirements—for example, it’s compulsory to have a forklift license to operate a forklift on a road. Above all, the health and safety of your people hinges on them knowing what they are doing and being equipped to carry out their jobs properly.

Proper competency management affects not only the safety of your workplace and operations, but also customer satisfaction, productivity, and profitability. When your people know what needs doing and how to do it, everything works better and you can achieve:

Greater flow and productivity
Effective people and processes
Development opportunities, which can encourage retention and attract top talent
Informed decision making and better problem solving
The momentum of a “learning organisation”
Awareness of individual training phases and whether supervision is required

The risks of poor or nonexistent competency management

A lack of competency management can have effects on your productivity, safety, and costs. Having people trained and ready to do the jobs assigned to them is how your operations are optimised—and when that isn’t the case, issues will arise.

Uncertainty will slow things down, take up the time of supervisors and colleagues, and create lags in efficiency. Incompetent workers can cause incidents that result in harm or extra cost to resolve, and workers whose learning is not prioritised are often unhappy and disengaged. There’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re bad at your job! This may result in turnover and the associated expenses. Additionally, incompetence will have flow-on adverse effects on the aspects of the business we mentioned in the last section: customer satisfaction, productivity, and profitably, to name a few.

Key person dependencies are another debilitating consequence of poor competency management. When organisational IQ and relevant skills are not passed on within the organisation, there is a heavy load of responsibility on those who have specific knowledge. Workplace resilience depends on sharing this out and ensuring that there are backups available should someone leave or become incapacitated.

Competency and training—what’s the difference?

These terms are often used interchangeably, but they are, in fact, two different perspectives on an important aspect of compliance.

Training, internal or external, often has defined boundaries. It’s a course or an event with clearly defined parameters, taking place over one day, a week, or shorter and ongoing sessions. Often, there’s an assessment, certification, or participation box ticked at the end of it.

Competency is a broader take. It is built not only through defined training courses but day-to-day work, on-the-job experience, informal teaching, coaching, and mentoring. Competency is not an event but an attribute—a continuous process that collectively helps to determine someone's suitability for a role, or defines their attainment of subject matter expertise in their line of work.

Spending thousands of dollars on external training doesn’t mean you’ll have competent workers, and not doing so doesn’t mean you won’t have them. Formal training is very useful in a lot of scenarios, but so are the more informal methods of building and testing competency. A carefully considered mixture of both is often the most productive route.

The elements of competency

We‘ve mentioned that workers build competency in a variety of ways. These are some of the foundational aspects of the process.

Induction

The process of induction (known in some contexts as onboarding) is about setting your people up for success right from the start. A comprehensive induction process should include:

General workplace introductions and orientation.
Important safety protocols and requirements - how to report an incident, what to do in an emergency.
Administrative requirements such as how to record hours and apply for leave.
Relevant role processes to be aware of.
Risks that relate to the role.
Allocation of equipment: PPE, devices, system access.
An induction plan (which may span a week or for the duration of a trial or probationary period) that covers thorough work instructions, with on-the-job demonstrations.

This really is a who’s who in the zoo, and it can be quirks and all. If they should steer clear of the blue mug because it's been adopted by ‘Jenny from Accounts’, or if a certain unmarked park is only ever used by the CEO, then tell them! Induction is all about integration, not initiation.

Internal training

Training your people internally is about the transfer of valuable knowledge and skills. Often, there is organisational IP and specific nuances of process that can’t be transmitted by any external source, so internal training is very important in building competency. It can include:

Mentoring and coaching
On-the job training, both formal and informal
Assessment against internal procedures and policies (work instructions or safe/standard operating procedures)
Training on tasks specific to the role/organisation
Direct or indirect supervision

This type of training is often undervalued, yet provides huge benefits. It provides bang for buck, and also a lot of consistency due to being role or organisational specific. Internal training programmes are key to career development, internal pipelines and promotions—but also to business continuity.

External training

External or third-party training is bringing in the big guns; deferring to the experts on those things that require it, by law or just out of practicality. Some external training provides certification that may be required for specific work or sites, or registration (i.e first aid, forkhoist license or a form of continuing professional development). These are often subject-related, and are more generic rather than organisational-specific It can include:

Public workshops and courses
External trainers conducting training onsite
Webinars or online self-directed learning
More generic knowledge and skills
Tertiary training

Records of assessment

A crucial part of the process of building competency through induction, training, and other methods is keeping records. Whether it’s ticking off an employee’s demonstrated understanding of an internal procedure or an external training completion, every step should be recorded.

Collecting proof of competency, training, or certification is a tool for risk management, allowing business leaders to decide how to distribute work and tasks to those who can do them well and safely. It is also important for insurances and liability, demonstrating due diligence in, per the HSWA, “the provision of any information, training, instruction, or supervision that is necessary to protect all persons from risks to their health and safety arising from work carried out as part of the conduct of the business or undertaking.”

TL;DR: managing competency

It’s crucial for organisations to have a competency management system, facilitating and tracking the induction, training, and other competency building of each employee. Having this in place is both a helpful tool for staffing and safety decisions and also, often, a legal requirement. The lack of a competency management system can cause inefficiencies, safety issues, and costly mistakes, with people unable to carry out their roles properly or safely.

A competency management system should take into account:

Induction: initial training/certifications and info transfer to get a new employee off to a good start.
Internal training: transmission of organisational IP, specific skills or knowledge, and experience.
External training: third-party experts imparting specific or specialist knowledge. Often resulting in a certification or required for an accreditation.
Records of assessment: keeping track of who knows what, who can do what, and who is certified to operate what. This is very important for risk management and also legal or insurance liability.

Get help with Emendas

Not feeling fully competent? Time to call in the big guns! Emendas can help you to create and implement competency management systems that are tailored to your business. Generic fill-in-the-blanks solutions rarely work well in practice—invest in some initial expert help and be equipped and empowered to effectively manage this aspect of compliance yourself in the years to come.