A Semantic Approach for Improving Competence Assessment in Organizations

M. Gaeta, F. Orciuoli, G. Fenza, G.R. Mangione, P. Ritrovato

Stefano Paolozzi on behalf of Francesco Orciuoli

University of Salerno, Italy Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering ICALT 2012, Roma, July 04, 2012

the problem

Assessing employees competences to properly support Competence-based Management processes (e.g. Career Development, Workforce Planning, etc.) in Organizations is both an important and complex task Due to their high costs, re-assessment events, to determine which competences have been developed by employees, are performed with low frequency (annually in the best cases) This makes quite difficult to achieve a true picture of competences in the Organization when it is really needed

The solution

Competence Assessment is the gathering of evidences (for competences) from more sources, and frequently more than one type of evidence is used to fairly and reliably determine the existence of a competence The main types of evidences are three: direct, indirect and supplementary:

The first one is frequently obtained by observing performance in the workplace or in simulations

In the second one, the gathered evidence can include workplace documents or portfolios
In the last one, evidence is gathered from a third party and is frequently obtained through interviews and testimonies

It is possible to use Organizational Knowledge to generate evidences for competences

A model for competences

A Competence consists of the integration of knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA) and enables one to effectively perform the activities of a given occupation or function to the standards expected in employment:

Knowledge can be practical, technical, theoretical, procedural, contextual (with respect to a specific job) (know-what) Skills can be technical, contextual, related to action, interpersonal and can refer to the ability to execute occupationspecific tasks, organization/process tasks (know-how) Attitudes can be personal attributes, personal and professional ethical codes of conduct

The approach

Combining three assessment methods to manage different competence elements requiring different evidence types:

Representation of Organizational Knowledge

Analysis of unstructured data

Analysis of structured data and support to 360-degree feedback

Generation of evidences for the skills demonstrated by an employee carrying out with success specific tasks
Identification of assessors for a 360-degree feedback by using superiors, subordinates and peers of an employee
IF employee <e> has successfully carried out task <t> requiring a specific skill <s> THEN <e> has <s>

IF employees <e> and <e1> have participated to task <t> THEN <e1> could assess attitudes of <e> in the context of a 360-degree feedback session

The result

A system for continuous assessment leveraging on the Organizational Knowledge

State of the work and future works

This work is realized in the context of the research activities of ARISTOTELE (FP7 EU) Project At the moment we are developing the system in the ARISTOTELE activities In the next months we will start experimentation and evaluation phases (always in the context of ARISTOTELE)

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

@workFraorc

forciuoli@unisa.it