National Occupational Standards

Summary
This workforce competence is mainly about making sure you have the personal resources (particularly knowledge, understanding, skills and time) to undertake your work role and reviewing your performance against agreed objectives. It also covers identifying and undertaking activities to develop your knowledge, skills and understanding where gaps have been identified.

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This workforce competence is about managing your personal resources (particularly knowledge, understanding, skills, experience and time) and your professional development in order to achieve your work objectives and your career and personal goals. You need to understand your work role and how it fits into the overall vision and objectives of the organisation whilst also understanding what is driving you in terms of your values and your career and wider personal aspirations.

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This workforce competence is about developing your personal networks to support both your current and future work. Your personal networks may include people in your own organisation, people you meet from other organisations and people you are in contact with over the phone or the Internet. Developing personal networks is based on the principles of reciprocity (exchanging things with others for mutual benefit) and confidentiality. People only want to network if there are mutual benefits from exchanging information and other resources. There must also be clearly agreed boundaries of confidentiality – certain information and resources may not be exchanged because they are confidential.

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This workforce competence covers how every organisation should have an overall strategic business plan and each identified area of responsibility should also have an operational plan that will contribute to achieving the objectives set out in the strategic business plan. The ‘area of responsibility’ may be, for example, a branch or department or functional area or an operating site within an organisation.

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This workforce competence is about making sure you have a clear and up-to-date picture of the environment in which your organisation operates and can produce information which could be used for planning and operational purposes. The ‘environment’ includes the ‘external’ operating environment – for example, customers and their needs, market trends, new technologies and methods, legislation, and the activities of competitors and partners. It also includes the ‘internal’ operating environment – for example, resources available to and the culture of the organisation.

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This workforce competence is about providing your organisation with a clear sense of direction and long-term plans that will help it move in that direction. Managers and leaders need to focus on the future and provide a clear vision of where the organisation is going and the route it is going to follow to get there.

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This workforce competence describes how once a strategic business plan has been developed and agreed, it needs to be put into action. This means: ‘selling’ the plan to the managers and other staff involved in putting it into practice; having agreed standards for measuring success; carefully monitoring the implementation of the plan and making adjustments along the way, a process that may need a lot of flexibility and openness to change.

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This workforce competence is about providing direction to the members of your team and motivating and supporting them to achieve the objectives of the team and their personal work objectives.

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This workforce competence is about providing direction to people in a clearly and formally defined area or part of an organisation and motivating and supporting them to achieve the vision and objectives for the area. The ‘area of responsibility’ may be, for example, a branch or department or functional area or an operating site within an organisation.

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This workforce competence is about providing direction to people in the organisation and enabling, inspiring, motivating and supporting them to achieve what the organisation has set out to do. It is expected that you will be aware of and be able to apply different styles of leadership appropriate to different people and situations.

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This workforce competence describes how organisations must show that they act responsibly in relation to their staff, customers, investors and the communities in which they work. All types of organisations must obey the law in key areas such as health and safety, employment, finance and company law. Many organisations also have to work within specific regulations for their industry and ethical frameworks. Organisations who want to maintain a good reputation also have to take account of the views of people in their communities on a whole range of issues such as the environment and other ways in which the organisation affects people’s quality of life.

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This workforce competence describes how every organisation, whatever its size or history, has a culture (simply defined as ‘the way we do things around here’). The culture of an organisation is based on assumptions and values about business, working life and relationships. These values influence the way people behave towards each other and customers, and how they relate to their work. There may be no such thing as a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ culture. However, the culture of an organisation has to be in line with its overall vision and strategy. If culture and strategy do not match, it’s unlikely the vision will be achieved.

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This workforce competence is about taking the lead in establishing and operating an effective risk management process across your organisation. This involves systematically identifying, evaluating and prioritising potential risks and communicating information to enable appropriate decisions and actions to be taken. It also involves developing an organisational culture in which individuals are risk aware but are not afraid of taking decision and undertaking activities which involve acceptable levels of risk.

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This workforce competence is about actively promoting equality of opportunity and diversity in your area of responsibility. It is intended to go beyond compliance with equality legislation and move towards a situation where there is awareness in your area of and active commitment to the need to ensure equality of opportunity and the benefits of diversity.

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This workforce competence is about taking a lead in actively promoting equality of opportunity and diversity in your organisation. There are a multitude of organisational benefits from doing this ranging from releasing the full potential of the workforce to being seen by customers, suppliers, potential employees and the wider community as a fair, forward looking and ethical employer. There is also the need to comply with equality legislation and any relevant codes of practice. This workforce competence involves committing senior management to promoting equality of opportunity and diversity and backing this up by ensuring that a policy and an action plan exist and are communicated and implemented across the organisation. It also involves monitoring and reviewing progress in order to identify further actions and changes to practice.

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This workforce competence is about encouraging and supporting the identification and practical implementation of ideas.

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This workforce competence is about encouraging and supporting the identification and practical implementation of ideas in your area of responsibility.

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This workforce competence is about encouraging and supporting the identification and practical implementation of ideas across your organisation.

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This workforce competence describes ‘Change’, which in various forms, is happening more often within organisations. The driving force for change may be external or internal to the organisation or a mixture of both. It may be a reaction to events or an attempt to improve the organisation for the future. This workforce competence reflects the need, in many situations, for someone to take control and provide a lead within the overall organisation or part of an organisation for a specific change or a wider programme of change. It involves selling the vision in terms of what the change is aiming to achieve and supporting the people involved in the practicalities of making the vision a reality.

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This workforce competence is about the planning that is needed to make a specific change or put into practice a programme of change. It involves developing a strategy to make the change that is needed, taking note of barriers, risks and the need to put appropriate monitoring and communication systems in place.

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This workforce competence is about putting into practice the strategy and associated plans for a specific change or programme of change. This involves putting in place the necessary resources and supporting systems, including monitoring and communications, to turn the ‘vision’ into a practical reality.

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This workforce competence is about developing working relationships with colleagues, within your own organisation and within other organisations that are productive in terms of supporting and delivering your work and that of the overall organisation. ‘Colleagues’ are any people you are expected to work with, whether they are at a similar position or in other positions.

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This workforce competence is about developing productive working relationships with colleagues, within your own organisation and within other organisations with which your organisation works, and with identified stakeholders. It involves being aware of the roles, responsibilities, interests and concerns of colleagues and stakeholders and working with and supporting them in various ways. The need to monitor and review the effectiveness of working relationships with colleagues and stakeholders is also a key requirement of this workforce competence. ‘Colleagues’ are any people you are expected to work with, whether they are at a similar position or in other positions in terms of level of responsibility.

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This workforce competence is mainly about recruiting and selecting people to undertake identified activities or work-roles within your area of responsibility. It involves taking a fair and objective approach to recruitment and selection to ensure that individuals with the required skills, knowledge and understanding and who are likely to perform effectively are appointed.

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This workforce competence is about taking a lead in identifying the workforce requirements of your organisation and how these will be satisfied. It involves considering the strategic objectives and plans of the organisation to decide whether the workforce should be expanded, maintained or contracted. It also involves considering whether there is an appropriate mix of people to achieve the organisation’s objectives, and whether any problems with this can be sorted out by recruiting staff, moving staff to other positions of making staff redundant.

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This workforce competence is about ensuring that the work required of your team is effectively and fairly allocated amongst team members. It also involves checking on the progress and quality of the work of team members to ensure that the required level or standard or performance is being met.

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This workforce competence is about ensuring that the work required in your area of responsibility is effectively planned and fairly allocated to individuals and/or teams. It also involves monitoring the progress and quality of the work of individuals and/or teams to ensure that the required level or standard of performance is being met and reviewing and updating plans of work in the light of developments. The ‘area of responsibility’ may be, for example, a branch or department or functional area or an operating site within an organisation.

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This workforce competence is about supporting colleagues in identifying their learning needs and helping to provide opportunities to address these needs. Encouraging colleagues to take responsibility for their own learning is an aspect of this unit as is your role in providing an ‘environment’, for example, in your team or area of responsibility, in which learning is valued.

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This workforce competence is about having ownership of and being responsible for a budget for a defined area or activity of work. It initially involves preparing, submitting and agreeing a budget for a set operating period. It also involves monitoring actual performance against the agreed budget and taking necessary action in response to identified variances and any unforeseen developments.

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This workforce competence is about managing finance in order to achieve the stated objectives for your area of responsibility. It involves developing and agreeing a master budget for your area and using this to monitor evaluate and control performance and take action to deal with identified variances.

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This workforce competence is about identifying the need for and obtaining additional finance to fund the organisation’s proposed activities. The organisation may already be generating some surplus income through the ongoing supply of its products and/or services. This may be insufficient, however, to fund activities such as investment in new equipment or proposed changes to products and/or services and it is in instances such as these where additional finance might be required.

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This workforce competence is about your role in making sure that the organisation gets the technology it needs and uses it in the best way possible. Technology might mean information or communications technology, equipment, machinery and so on. It does not necessarily mean using complicated technology or the latest invention. Instead it is about assessing the use of technology and improving it, which might mean making better use of what is already in place or even shifting to a lower-tech solution if that is appropriate.

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This workforce competence is concerned with managing the overall health and safety process in your area of responsibility. It is intended to go beyond meeting health and safety legislation and move towards a situation where health and safety considerations are firmly embedded in the planning and decision making processes and the ‘culture’ of your area of responsibility.

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This workforce competence is concerned with leading the overall approach to health and safety in your organisation.

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This workforce competence is about managing a project for which you have been given responsibility. This involves developing and agreeing a plan for the project and monitoring and controlling implementation of and changes to the plan. It also involves ensuring that the project achieves its key objectives and is completed to the satisfaction of the project sponsor(s) and any key stakeholders.

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This workforce competence is about managing a specific programme of different projects which are independent but still depend on each other. Taken together, these projects will contribute to achieving a bigger strategic aim.

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This workforce competence is about managing business processes to make sure the organisation delivers outputs that meet customers’ needs and stakeholders’ needs, and organisational and legal requirements.

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This workforce competence covers a broad range of general, operational management responsibilities, all aimed at satisfying customers with the processes, products and or services being delivered.

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This workforce competence is about overseeing the continuous improvement of the overall performance of the organisation. The emphasis is very much on identifying and implementing changes which will add value in the eyes of customers and other key stakeholders.

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