Securing a Competent Workforce! A Comparison of How Tech Companies and Municipalities Work With Competency Management.

Abstract: The society has gone from production equipment being the most valued asset in the organizations, to today, having the human asset and their competencies as a valuable and critical contributor to business profit. Competency Management has, therefore, received much attention and been a common Human Resource practice in the past decades. However, it is still an unexplored process in many private and public organizations. Partly because it is complex, and it can be challenging for organizations to establish a framework for how to work with Competency Management. We were, therefore, intrigued to explore how private and public organizations work with Competency Management. Thus, the purpose of this study is to compare how tech companies and municipalities work with Competency Management. An abductive and qualitative approach was chosen by conducting 12 virtual and semi-structured interviews with six municipalities and six tech companies. The result of this research shows that Competency Management is a strategic initiative for the majority of the organizations, and it is, therefore, a clear connection between the Competency Management strategy and the organizational strategy. The municipalities and tech companies had a similar purpose with working with Competency Management, but different focuses were identified. The findings show that very few have structured Competency Management processes. However, one of the main findings of this research is that both sectors, regardless of employee size, can establish a Competency Management process and execute it. Further, mainly similarities and a few differences in how the sectors worked with Competency Management was identified. The research also revealed several positive effects of working with Competency Management and that it can create a competitive advantage.