Employees are our Core Competency!
Throughout my career I have hear this time and time again, MY EMPLOYEES ARE OUR CORE COMPETENCY! This may be true but I also think there is often a gap between the strategy and this overused statement. Employees are only a core competency if you have linked through to your corporate strategy.
First lets start by defining core competency as it relates to employees.
If this is truly a core competency it means that the skills, talents, and capabilities of your workforce are a primary source of competitive advantage for your organization. This implies that your employees possess unique qualities and expertise that are crucial to your company's success and that they contribute significantly to delivering your corporate strategy.
If your strategy is to gain massive market share through the use of low pricing think about about how your employees are a part of that system. If we use McDonalds as an example one thing we know that they do is they have a very consistent standardized training program for employees. This helps to reduce errors, increase productivity and ultimately help their strategy. McDonalds has identified that employees play a key role in their strategy and thus they invest in their training programs for employees.
More generically, I think about innovation. If innovation is critical to your business’ strategy, what systems and processes are you putting in place to create a culture the promotes innovation with your employees - now your employees are a core competency in your business.
If you believe that your employees are critical to the success of your organization, take the time to draw the connection between your employees and the corporate strategy. Now that you have linked your strategy to employees and determined that they play a planned and critical role in the execution of your strategy, you must actively invest in the things that are going to continue to enhance the employees ability to execute or drive that strategy. This could include things such as leadership or skills development, fostering a supportive culture that drives the strategy, or putting in systems and processes that leverage employee strengths to achieve strategic goals.
An effective strategy provides a roadmap for an organization, helping to ensure that all efforts and resources are aligned towards achieving its long-term vision and mission. How you align your employees and whether they are a core competency will really depend on your unique vision and mission, and it may not play a key role for everyone.