As featured in Waterline Autumn 2024

Competency – It’s so much more than just training!

by Stephen Gathergood, a serving member of the CIBSE Facilities Management Group

The skills market has been in decline for too long and we are on the brink of a tipping point. Balancing on a precipice that could see the Facilities Management sector, in all its discipline specific guises, spiral into an era where there are just not enough suitably trained and competent resources to go round. Some may even say we are there already!

Despite reasonably high levels of interest for job adverts, many organisations have long term vacant positions within their structures that they are finding difficult to fill. This is a factor of unrealistic salary expectations of those applying when set against what they have to offer in terms of the value proposition that they represent, over-confidence in their ability to properly perform the job, and poor attitudes to employment as perceived by those interviewing. For those candidates that are successful, meet the necessary selection criteria and are recruited, is it just a matter of churn, opportunistic job hopping for improved prospects, environments, or monetary reward? For the industry as a whole, however, is it just analogous to rearranging the chairs on the Titanic?! Short term employments are not helpful to organisations, or indeed to the individual themselves, although some may perceive the contrary depending upon their own personal value set and job expectations (note the term ‘job’ in this context and not ‘career’).

Is the talent pool so much smaller than it used to be? Is it that we are seeing a profound and notable transformation in organisational attitudes to compliance and/or the avoidance of risk? Are clients becoming more informed about what they are buying and are demanding higher standards from those with whom they contract?

Potentially, the answer is all of these things coming together like a perfect storm. Skills are leaving due to a lack of funding, re-training in alternate careers, retirement, and other reasons, whilst coincidentally new talent is not entering the market due to a lack of historical promotion of the profession, increased focus on other career choices, and abandonment of apprenticeships following the 2008 recession. Overlay this with the increased scrutiny surrounding the need for compliance, both statutory and contractually, and it becomes abundantly clear that a different approach is needed. The squeezing of the talent pool and the reduction of competent resources at both ends of this spectrum is unsustainable.

We, as employers and corporate bodies, need to change perceptions and promote FM and technical skills to future generations; we need to instil interest at a young age through Young Engineers programmes, STEM schemes, CIBSE’s ‘Flush challenge’ and other initiatives so that there is a pipeline to service the future.

But what do we do in the interim?
There really is only one solution and that includes investment, upskilling, retraining and the implementation of strategies designed to ensure the development and retention of existing resources, and the attraction of new ones into roles with genuine growth prospects.

If we consider the fire safety space, many contractors and service providers believed themselves to be competent. The tragic events of Grenfell resulted in a forensic review and the result was an update to legislation that made it a statutory obligation to assure competence. Do we need to wait for a massive Legionella outbreak with the associated loss of life before COSHH, L8, and the guidance within the water safety space follows suit?

As clients and duty holders, it is our responsibility to only appoint competent people or competent organisations. Failure to do so makes us culpable if those appointed turn out not to be, so we must ensure that we undertake appropriate due diligence before we employ or appoint. Equally, contractors and service providers have a duty of care to their staff; exposing them to work situations or asking them to undertake activities for which they are not competent to deliver makes them culpable also.

So how do we ensure that we appoint competent people? Due diligence should be proportionate to the risk associated with both the task and the environment within which the appointment relates. In the context of water, for example, the competence requirement to deliver a water hygiene risk assessment in a small single story office facility, being mains fed, and housing a toilet block and a small kitchenette facility, will attract a significantly lower hazard potential, and thus competence requirement, than an industrial processing plant with numerous tanked supplies and heat rejection via open cooling towers. Simply put the level of due diligence, and by association the level of competence, for a given situation should be directlyproportional to the risk and complexity of the task.

Figure 1 – S-K-A-T-E-R Components of Competence
[source: CIBSE Guide M16, 2023]

For most of us the road to becoming competent, at whatever level, and within whatever field of operations, is a product of our lived experiences; a combination of inherent and learned skills, specific relevant knowledge, behavioural attitudes, related training, and specific experience. More importantly though, is an unbiased recognition of our individual limitations; that point when we say “No, that’s not something I am competent to deliver”.

CIBSE’s Guide M, Chapter 16 (2023) suggests that organisations can consider the assessment of competence by reference to the acronym ‘SKATER’. This includes, as a pre-requisite, a blend of the attributes shown in Figure 1. The proportions of which will be different depending upon the task and the environment within which the operative is working.

This ability to say ‘No’ is not a weakness; it’s a strength that truly competent people recognise. Indeed, taking on a task that is outside of your area of competence could be considered reckless, or, if things go wrong, negligent. In serious cases where the outcome of a failing results in an incident or accident that involves the Health & Safety Executive, then invariably the courts will decide.

So, what combination of these attributes is best? This is unique to every situation, guidelines do exist, but it is impossible to prescribe a formula that will be applicable in every situation. The key is to ask appropriate questions, review historical training provision and its validity, request current qualifications and certifications, review trade body memberships, consider whether a practical demonstration such as scenario testing would be appropriate, and if necessary, take up references from previous employers. If still unsure seek expert advice and ask someone else of known competence or a competent organisation to assess them for you. Whatever approach is taken, the most important thing is to document your findings. It is essential that a body of evidence exists that can be used, as a defence, should it become necessary to demonstrate that sufficient due diligence was undertaken prior to the appointment of an individual that was involved in an incident or accident. It is also important that your assessment documents are revisited periodically to demonstrate that complacency is being kept in check and that the competence of the individual is not diminishing over time due to a change brought about by the influence of external factors.

As people are developed and experience is gained, it is often helpful to pair that person with a more experienced mentor or supervisor to allow the resource to be able to perform in a ‘safe’ environment. As the competence (and confidence) of the mentee resource grows, the intensity of oversight and supervision can reduce until the point that the resource is considered suitably competent and can work unsupervised.

The competence continuum, shown in Figure 2, illustrates the relationship between the level of competence and the necessary level of supervision for safety purposes and to assure quality outcomes. It identifies that the level of supervision is inversely proportional to the level of competence. As noted previously, competence can be impacted by internal and external factors.

Figure 2 – The Competence Continuum [source: CIBSE KS21, 2017]

Training and development and the creation of a competent resource pool will help position your organisation with an advantage over your competitors through Corporate Competency. In a market where competent staff are hard to find, many organisations are now realising that to prosper and secure their own future they must create their own success. It has been recognised that a great way of doing this is to create competence from within. People generally want to learn, succeed, better themselves, and benefit in the rewards that follow.

If we accept Hertzberg’s two factor theory of motivation and hygiene, by delivering a coherent programme of training and development, organisations increase the probability of creating a team of loyal staff who will support the organisation. This support stems from a heightened sense of personal achievement, an appreciation of greater responsibility, demonstrable recognition, more autonomy, improved career prospects, and personal growth. Importantly though, the weighting of enhanced job security and the associated financial benefits as reward for performance will also increase and these can, if not properly managed, have an unwanted consequence as longer-term indicators of employee dissatisfaction. Thus, the development of a human resource strategy should be a medium to long term plan that should be reviewed, discussed, and progressed at every Personal Development Review to minimise the impact of the hygiene factors and maximise the motivators for employee development and retention. Regretfully, these ‘softer’ people management skills are often lost in the ‘hard’ services and technical sectors, and may be contributory to higherthan-average churn when considered holistically, as an industry. It has been established however, that by applying a systematic process of review and evaluation, assessment of training needs and meaningful career dialogue regarding advancement trajectory and expectations, that an organisation can develop a team of loyal and trusted employees that will be not only highly skilled, trained, and competent, but who are less likely to chase short term job opportunities and will remain seeking a longer-term career.