Difference between Skills and Competencies

The aim of this essay is to discuss the effective skill and competencies needed for career development. In this paper, the personal desire to become an HR manager by incorporating effective behavioural and ethical competencies have been explored. Skill is the learned capacity which helps the persons to carry out the predetermined results. The term skills and competences have been used virtually and interchangeably now a days. To most of the business practitioners, the competencies seem like the behavioural competencies whereas the skills are learned capacity. These make the skills and competencies different from each other. This essay will review literatures of the scholars and point out what skills and competencies are most valued in the business context of the recent times.

In order to become an ethical practitioner, the difference of skills and competencies is needed to be understood. Skills are proficiency, facilities and dexterity which are required for working professionally and developed through experience and training. Skill is the ability which comes from the knowledge, attitude and the practice so that the persons can do well in their professional lives. The abilities and capacity which are developed through systematic, deliberate as well as sustained effort for carrying out the complex activities and job functions adaptively, are associated with ideas of cognitive skills, technical knowledge and the interpersonal skills. In addition to this, skills are learning abilities for bringing about the consequences of the result the persons want with their maximum certainty as well as efficiency (Clark and Wayment 2017). Skills also include proficiency that can be developed through learning from the others or training that support the knowledge. 

Competency on the other hand is a collection of associated abilities, knowledge, obligations and the skills which make an individual or an organisation to act perfectly in the job and situations. Competencies are the skills and knowledge which lead the managers or organisations to perform better. These are the quantifiable skills, capabilities and personality traits which classify the successful workers against their defined parts within the organisation. The competency is more than skills and knowledge as it includes the capabilities to meet the complex situations or demands through depiction as well as mobilisation of the psychological sources that includes skills attitudes and particular context. Competency is a measurable pattern of skills, abilities, knowledge and behaviour which support the characteristics of the individual who want to perform the work and occupational functions efficiently. The competencies of a person particularly specify how the job will be performed and what the individual needs to do for doing that job successfully. Therefore competencies can incorporate skill but it is more than skill as it includes abilities as well as behaviour of the persons along with the knowledge fundamental for the skills.

Essential Skills and Competencies for HR Managers

In this global context the employees of the business organisations are looking for some very important skills and competencies among the employees. Starting from the ground level employees to the management level, there are separate types of skills and competencies which are being supported. The general job skills are associated with employability skills or soft skills. Along with the job skills the employees are expected to be dependable, easy to mix up and flexible for learning new things. The core competencies for skills which the management employees are needed to have include communication skills, teamwork, problem solving, planning and organising initiative and Enterprise over learning and use of Technology and self-management skills.

According to the study by Froehlich et al. (2018), the organisations in present business contexts are judging the employees with their different constituents of employability along with how the employees can progress with their employability trails. There are some models of progression of employability which are less likely to be related to interpersonal skills rather than elements of occupational expertise. In this global context, the organisations are expecting the employees to be understanding with the competencies which are important at the stages of the individuals’ career and career growth. Therefore, the career counsellors and human resource management specialists are giving more targeted advices for career management practices. In this context when the HR manager is recruiting another manager for the organisation, he or she will definitely find the best skilled and competent employee so that the training and other support tend to be minimal. 

For the managers, skills of planning and organising is essential. This means the process of working out what the organisation needs to do and how it will do it. The planning and organisational skills in worst things like meeting deadlines and developing project timelines. In case of the managers, the employees, suppliers, customers and other stakeholders are to be aligned for the growth of the business. Therefore it is the managers who plan and organise every project so that nothing can have an adverse effect for the growth of this business. This also includes the initiative and Enterprise skills that help the managers in this business context to do things without being asked and involve thinking creatively for making improvements to support the growth of the business.

Oussii and Klibi (2017) have detailed their study among three Tunisian business schools which has revealed that the students of business education are being conscious about the skills they will need in their profession and career. Among all, they are finding the communication skills to be the most important for being successful in their career. Depending upon the jobs, communication has meant to be clear about what one means and what he wants to achieve when he or she talks and writes. Communication skill involves both listening and being able to realise what someone is talking about. Listening is the first and foremost element that helps the persons to develop communication skills. Being a good listener is the best way to be a good communicator.

General Job Skills and Core Competencies

The process of active listening involves paying close attention to what the speaker is saying which ensures understanding of the context based on which he or she will be communicating further. The nonverbal communication for the body gesture, eye contact, tones of voice and hand gestures differentiate one communicator from the other. Eye contact means demonstrating the focus and how the person is feeling. The clarity boys and saying enough words on a topic or subject can be attractive more than the communicators who use more words to express their vision. In addition to these, friendliness, confidence, empathy and open mindedness help the communicators to show respect for the others and their ideas. Being able to provide feedback and receive them are important communication skills. In case of the job roles of the managers as well as supervisor needs to be able to find out the ways to provide the Employees with constructive feedback. It can be through email, weekly status updates or phone calls in every medium, the managers need to be clear in their statements so that these can reach the employees more effectively and the desired outcome is attained (Rutten et al. 2016). Through communications the managers can motivate their employees and get support from them for introducing policies or regulations. 

Akkermans et al. (2018), have pointed out that the students while obtaining occupation specific knowledge as well as skills need also to develop the sets of career self-management skills and resources so that we can help them to men over various career related challenges successfully and stimulate their wellbeing from a performance and engagement in the tasks. In this current study the authors have applied job demands resources theory in the educational setting then suggested that the career adaptability and career competencies are two important carrier resources which can predict what the life satisfaction as well as academic performance of the business study students (Rowan-Kenyon et al. 2017).

Both Mishra and Mishra (2018) and Jackson and Wilton (2016) have pointed out the importance of work integrated learning. In this regard the importance of having skills for working in teams and getting along with the people with whom a person is working need to be developed. In this global context with the organisations are being more local and cross-cultural the competency in working in teams consisting different types of people with different background and knowledge is essential. For the managers the problem solving skills are essential so that they can face the difficulties are the setbacks. According to Mishra, the potentiality of solving problems at the time of adversity and making perfect decision is expected from the managers in every organisation irrespective of their size and industries. The problems can be known or unknown but the skills if utilised properly can result in positive outcome. 

Importance of Communication Skills in the Career

Therefore, it can be concluded that the managers in this global business contexts need to be more efficient than ever, they need to be capable of having interpersonal skills, communication, problem solving skills, teamwork, initiative and organisational skills which can help them to match all the criteria of the organisations. In this regard, the individuals need to enhance the scope of learning about the competences and take all the support from the trainings and other methods of developing skills. Knowing technology is essential for operating in the companies which on the other hand can help to development of knowledge both about the industries where they are working and the tools needed for developing competencies are to be utilised properly. 

References:

Akkermans, J., Paradnike, K., Van der Heijden, B. & De Vos, A. 2018, “The Best of Both Worlds: The Role of Career Adaptability and Career Competencies in Students’ Well-Being and Performance”, FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY, vol. 9, pp. 1678.

Clark, T.S. and Wayment, H.A., 2017. Integrating Online Career-Development Skills in a Management Course: Findings of Increased Career Confidence and Adult Development. Journal of the Academy of Business Education, 18.

Froehlich, D.E., Liu, M. and Maria Van der Heijden, Beatrice Isabella Johanna 2018, “Work in progress: the progression of competence-based employability“, Career Development International, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 230-244.

Jackson, D. & Wilton, N. 2016, “Developing career management competencies among undergraduates and the role of work-integrated learning“, Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 266-286.

Mishra, S.K. & Mishra, D. 2018, “Essential Employability Skills Of Engineering Students For It Sector”, International Journal of Management Research and Reviews, vol. 8, no. 11, pp. 14.

Oussii, A.A. & Klibi, M.F. 2017, “Accounting students’ perceptions of important business communication skills for career success”, Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 208-225.

Rowan-Kenyon, H.T., Savitz-Romer, M., Ott, M.W., Swan, A.K. and Liu, P.P., 2017. Finding conceptual coherence: Trends and alignment in the scholarship on noncognitive skills and their role in college success and career readiness. In Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 141-179). Springer, Cham.

Rutten, M., Ros, A., Kuijpers, M. & Kreijns, K. 2016, “Usefulness of Social Network Sites for Adolescents’ Development of Online Career Skills”, Journal of Educational Technology & Society, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 140-150.

Seo, G., Hedayati Mehdiabadi, A. & Huang, W. 2017, “Identifying core competencies to advance female professors’ careers: an exploratory study in United States academia”, Journal of Further and Higher Education, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 741-759.