The Building Blocks of Competency Training

Back in August, I touched on the importance of employee competency training and evaluation, and ended the conversation with a call to build and implement a competency program where one was not already in place.

Now I’m here to better explain just how you can meet that call to action.

Here are 7 key tips for building the most substantive competency-based training program in your company.

1. Choose a leader. Every department within your organization should have a distinct set of Core Competencies. To ensure the right competencies are identified and implemented with consistency and integrity, identify a leader within the department and make it their responsibility to maintain the program for their people.
2. Create mentors. Particularly effective for clinical and registration staff is mentorship—this concept is certainly not a new one, but it can be instrumental in helping employees strengthen and maintain key competencies. Mentors should be individuals within your organization to whom employees have regular access.
3. Utilize third parties. Maybe you don’t have the time or staff to build your competency-based program, and that’s okay. Consider hiring a third party vendor that can work with your leaders to develop, implement and oversee an internal competency program.
4. Conduct audits. Data now drives much of the work we do and there are ever-increasing requirements and regulations for handling that data; this has made it increasingly beneficial to outsource routine audits. Audits will not only ensure that you’re handling data properly, it will help you identify areas that require improved competencies.
5. Identify and analyze. There are seven key competencies that should be present in your office, and these should be continuously monitored. Competencies include: clinical, quality, efficiency, safety, risk management, data analytics and collaboration.
6. Data, data, data. This is an area that offices cannot ignore—successful data analytics is vital to setting your company apart and increasing its overall health. Data analytics staff must understand how to use data to drive quality, safety and efficiency, and then spot revenue trends to identify potential opportunities to improve—making sure your data analytics staff is well trained to gather clean data from the starting point of care is a must.
7. Create buy-in and then monitor. Competency programs should be driven by a company’s mission, vision and value statement, and should be implemented first among the leadership before being rolled out across the board. Routine monitoring of core competencies will then ensure that training is continuously up-to-date and on target.

If core competency evaluation and training is new for your organization, remind employees that this is a measure to help them improve in their role and contribute to the company’s success—it’s not an effort to trap them or prove them a poor performer.

Need additional insight into the benefits of a core competency training program? Or are you ready to get started and looking for some guidance in your undertaking? Give in2itive Business Solutions a call today and let our team get you started.