Competencies, qualifications and experience
Alice Tligui, International Health Exchange, and Rory Downham, Bioforce
Alice and Rory gave a presentation on baseline or minimum competencies for aid workers, based on a survey done of field staff who were early on in their careers as aid workers. For the full report, see Appendix 3.
The core competencies were distilled from the existing competency frameworks of the ICRC, IFRC and UNHCR for personal qualities; a brainstorming session of the working group provided the lists of technical competencies and the knowledge based competencies. Survey members were asked to rate competencies on a scale of 1-5, 1 being essential, 5 being not required at all.
The research focused on first/second mission aid workers. The questionnaire was mailed out by the agencies that had deployed the personnel. There were 39 responses from personnel who had worked for 16 agencies. Human Resources personnel attending EPS 3 were also asked to complete a questionnaire to see how their rankings of competencies would compare with the field workers.
The main conclusion from the survey was that there seemed to be consensus amongst early career aid workers that personal qualities are more important than both contextual knowledge and generalised technical skills in contributing to doing their job well, and that contextual knowledge was more important than technical knowledge. The importance of personal qualities was further emphasised by the HR personnel feedback.
As rated by |
Field workers |
Human resources personnel |
Top 5
Competencies |
- Spoken English
- Team working
- Flexibility
- Interpersonal skills
- Security awareness
|
- Flexibility
- Teamwork
- Motivation
- Commitment to humanitarian values
- Knowledge of humanitarian values
|
Bottom 5
Competencies |
- Local language( written)
- vehicle repair
- income/expense accounting
- budget setting
- salary administration
|
- Local language (written)
- vehicle repair
- salary admin
- dismissal
- bookkeeping
|
Competencies rated below 2.0 were perceived as the most essential, competencies rated higher than 3.0 were seen as unnecessary. The most significant differences in competency rating between field workers and human resources personnel were:
Competencies |
Field workers |
Human resources personnel |
Difference |
Stress management |
2.4 |
1.5 |
0.9 |
Knowledge of humanitarian values |
1.9 |
1.3 |
0.6 |
Commitment to humanitarian values |
1.9 |
1.3 |
0.6 |
Driving |
3.0 |
2.3 |
0.7 |
Budget setting |
3.7 |
2.8 |
0.9 |
Income/expenditure accounts |
3.7 |
2.9 |
0.8 |
The presentation raised a number of points in discussion:
- Technical skills are important too –the presenters responded they were trying to unearth the essential skills
- If the order of questions had been slipped with technical skills listed first, this may have produced a different result
- If the scorings went from 1 to 5, then 3 should be seen as less necessary, not unnecessary
- Personal qualities and interpersonal skills were assessed together in the survey, though they are different
- What about the size of the agency – smaller organisations might rate technical skills higher
- Why was gender separated out – why not consider diversity as a whole?
- If people had been asked for the skills necessary to achieve operational objectives, rather than “doing their job well”, a different profile might have emerged.
A question arose as to whether it was possible to interview for the essential personal qualities. The majority of participants were convinced that it is possible to interview for these softer skills as well as technical skills.