Finance Monthly December 2019 Edition

27 www.finance-monthly.com FINANCE & BUSINESS - MAKING TRAINING & COMPETENCE WORK Therefore, the question is how to capitalise on the opportunity that SM&CR provides for firms that, in the past, may have had challenges in delivering a robust T&C framework. Using our experience from working with customers implementing certification who also have T&C schemes, we suggest following three simple steps: 1.Review activities: Analyse the activities that create and manage employee competence in the T&C scheme. Do the same for the activities designed to underpin competence in your certification regime. Look for overlapping activities, i.e. activities undertaken in T&C that could be used to enhance the evidence base for employee competence in certification, and vice-versa, e.g. using CPD records or qualifications from T&C scheme in the certification regime. Also, consider activities, currently not used by either that could be used to enhance the ‘evidence base’, e.g. although performance appraisal records are used in many firm’s certification regimes, they are not used by all. In those situations, appraisal records could be a very good source of evidence for both T&C and the certification regime. Doing so will prevent duplication and potentially provide opportunities for enhancing the ‘evidence base’ in each scheme/regime. Of course, as part of this review if evidence gaps are identified, consider activities that can enhance both schemes. 2.Consider resourcing: Don’t focus solely on activities. Also, consider the individuals involved in those activities. For example, line managers usually conduct performance appraisals. If appraisal records can be used as part of the evidence base in both T&C and certification, this can reduce the workload required to administer the schemes. 3.Make Change: Use the results of this analysis to win support for updating the activities in your T&C scheme, and this will naturally help you build up your evidence set for your internal Certification Regime. T&C schemes and Certification Regimes seldomalign perfectly, however, experience has taught us that there is sufficient overlap between them in many firms, smaller firms included, to recommend using the activities within each to enhance and sometimes streamline the other. As stated earlier, although the ‘go-live’ date for SM&CR is 9th December 2019, there will be a strong focus on implementing Certification in readiness for the first annual deadline in 2020. By using T&C activities as the start point for considering how certification can be evidenced, SM&CR project teams can be given a ‘fast start’. In return, however, the supplementary activities that no doubt will be used for evidencing certification can be used to bolster the evidence base for ensuring employee competence in T&C. For SMEs where resource is always at a premium, SM&CR provides a golden opportunity.