Competency Assessment Forum

Hi Maria,

The role of the assessor is to provide comments and recommendations regarding competencies of the assessed persons and/or groups and this can have an important impact in organizational development. In this respect, decisions should be made according to organization approach.

Organizational changes regarding overall improvement of activity might need a long term planning and implementation, depending on the impact. In this context, the role of the assessor should be only regarding identification of the new assessment objectives and applying these following implementation of the changes.

"Imagine, as a result of the competency assessment, AMP was recognised as "competent", but Assessors formulated some comments to improve overall quality of work. So, should Assessors monitor the execution of such recommendations? If so, in what time it should be completed? Is it need to be additionally documented by Assessors? Or, probably, it is sufficient to be done during the next competency assessment?"

Hi Maria,
I will answer your questions from how we do it here in Australia. The assessors do note areas forecasters can improve even if they are deemed competent. We like to give forecasters ways to develop professionally. We remind forecasters that the competency assessment is the minimum required performance to do the job, but if they want to excel, there are certainly areas we can recommend they focus on developing. We document this feedback and provide it to the forecaster and their manager. Once our assessors have completed the documentation and communication, we hand over the responsibility for any follow up action to the forecaster's manager. It is not our job to instigate follow-up action, that is the job of the manager. However, we can respond to requests from managers to conduct training based on the recommendations. We just won't initiate that without the manager's endorsement. I hope that makes sense.

Competency assessments do provide good motivation to conduct professional development. Organizations that deliver training prior to assessment, especially if that training is targeted to recommendations from previous competency assessments, will see an improvement in performance overall.

Regards,
Andrea