What is the social gain from competency management? The employees’ perception at a Brazilian public university

Abstract

In the present global scenario of strong competitive edge, the Human factor had its relevance enhanced, presenting itself as a key element to enhance organizations’ flexibility and performance. Since the 1990s, one of the most widespread and studied Human Resources practices has consisted of the Management Model by Competency, that innovated by changing the “position” reference to the “people” element. Therefore, this paper tries to investigate what are the elements that influence the employees’ perception of social gain within an establishment that had taken on the competency management model. This is a quantitative work with survey methodology. The sample consists of 422 employees of a Brazilian public university that had implanted the competency model in 2011. The questionnaire, available in an online environment, used the dimensions developed by Sarsur (2007). The relationships between the actions on corporate education, wage move, career move, managerial positions held, workplace and seniority (independent variables) with the perception employees have of social gain (dependent variables) were analyzed through non parametric statistical techniques. The results indicate that the employees’ perception of social competency gains in the model displays an essentially utilitarian nature. Namely, just the benefited employees demonstrated higher rankings of perception regarding the new proposal.