In the previous part of the insight about implementing the Competency Matrix in an organization, we focused on the technical aspects needed to prepare the tool. From this part, you will learn how this idea was implemented in practice in Polarys Polska. 

What steps did we take at Polarys Polska to implement the matrix?  

There is no doubt that to put an idea into practice, we firstly need to familiarize ourselves with it and gain knowledge about it. 

At Polarys Polska, we have started with training and familiarizing all employees with the idea of the Competency Matrix. We conducted a separate training for team leaders, as they are responsible for employee evaluation and daily use of the tool. The training should be focused on the most important functions of the matrix  (you can read about it Agnieszka’s insight) as well as on the way of working with employees’ competencies, both hard and soft skills. Training for team members is a great way of showing the value of introducing this tool, enhancing individual development support functions, and periodically monitoring progress.

Two stages of evaluation – why is it so important? 

Firstly, we need to know the self-assessment of our employees, so later we can objectively evaluate the actual level of knowledge of the competency – this is where the questionnaire we wrote about in the previous insights will come in handy. It’s important that the questionnaire collects not only the assessment of knowledge of competencies but also asks employees about their level of interest in developing a given competence. 

Responses collected in this way are a great basis for individual discussions with the team leader who will be able to talk about the actual level of familiarity of each competency and unify the assessments. This is a sensitive stage, so education is needed here as well, both: for the leaders on how to conduct such an interview, and for the employees to be aware of the purpose of such an interview. 

Finished Competency Matrix – start using it 

Now our Competency Matrix is complete and we can start applying it to a daily routine. 

Based on it, team leaders can more consciously select tasks for team members so that they are in line with their skills, but also their interests. Team members, together with their leaders, can build long-term plans for their development, as well as monitor their progress in knowledge of particular competency. The Competency Matrix also facilitates ad-hoc analyses of a team’s development level or can be used to help identify competency gaps. These are just a few ways to use the Competency Matrix, which is a versatile tool and can be expanded with additional components. 

It is worth using it daily and periodically updating the data it contains. Over time we are sure we will see a lot of benefits from introducing the Competency Matrix into our organization.