Competency assessment can seem like an overwhelming task, especially for a large workforce or a very small one with little time for the extra effort of assessing and documenting the competency of its staff members. Unless the process is carefully planned, it can truly become overwhelming. The organisation must be cognisant of its own limitations and constraints, and adopt an assessment strategy that fits their means without compromising the validity of the process.
WMO has published a Guide to Competency (WMO-No. 1205) to help prepare an organisation for this process, and much useful guidance was created for the global aviation forecaster competency assessment programmes that all WMO Members were required to undertake at the request of ICAO. One of the key elements of the guidance for aeronautical forecasters is the Competency Assessment Toolkit, which was the inspiration for this Marine Services Competency Assessment Toolkit, and the model for much of the information contained here.
While a competency assessment can be time consuming, it can be of great value to the organisation and to those being assessed. The assessment process not only helps to identify potential gaps in knowledge and skill of staff members, leading to an awareness of capacity development needs, but it also helps to bring to light organisational strengths and opportunities for improvements, and generally increases the level of organisational self-awareness, including a better understanding of its processes, tools and customers. Further benefits of competency assessment are described in WMO-No. 1205.
However, competency assessment can be stressful for everyone involved, both the individuals being assessed and the assessors conducting the process. No one likes the feeling of being judged by one's colleagues, nor being the one to make judgements. WMO-No. 1205 and this Toolkit are designed to help relieve some of this stress by providing a solid framework for completing the process, as well as principles for keeping it fair, effective, and efficient.
Having a competency framework to guide the development of staff member job descriptions helps to ensure that the organisation is at a level that meets international expectations for service delivery. For this reason, WMO has defined competency frameworks in many areas of service delivery. These frameworks are collected in the publication, WMO-No. 1209, Compendium of WMO Competency Frameworks.
The Marine Services Competency Assessment Toolkit is composed of several parts:
The Purpose and Background of the Toolkit, which is the section you are reading now.
Marine Weather Forecaster Competencies, which has been extracted from the official source of that competency framework, WMO-No. 1209, to facilitate your access to the framework as approved by WMO Executive Council.
Ice Forecasting Competencies, also extracted from that publication.
Principles of Competency Assessment, a set of commonly agreed to characteristics of effective competency assessment processes.
Methods for Competency Assessment, a description of each of the primary methods for conducting a competency assessment programme, usual in combination with one another. Read this section before reviewing Toolkit 1.
Toolkit 1: Marine Weather Forecasters: This section offers an assessment matrix that provide examples of tools that apply the methods for this framework. The example matrix will be useful as guidance for developing your own.
Toolkit 2: Ice Forecasters: This section will serve the same purpose for this competency framework. It is still under development.
Developing a Competency Assessment Plan: This section offers steps, structure and recommendations for planning a successful competency assessment initiative.
