HIGHER SCHOOL – INDUSTRY COOPERATION AS A CRADLE FOR PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCIES DEVELOPMENT

As is known, professional competence is the ability to perform the duties of one’s profession to an acceptable quality. This is not a generic or instantly gained capability – it is developed by training in a particular field and taking part in activities contributing to one’s development as a competent professional. The activities in question include mentorship, career development fora and coaching; yet, the best basis for most efficient development of future employees’ professional competences can be used as early as in higher school – i.e. University–industry cooperation.
Much has been written about competency models and competency frameworks, which are undoubtedly important for both employee and employing organisation. Yet, instead of investing many resources into selecting and shaping proper employees, the employer can ‘plant and grow’ future employees – actually tailor them according to the company’s needs, vision and for the sake of its prosperity.

So, the famous idea to involve all stakeholders and base on their competent opinions, the idea to ‘use preventive measures’ and first make a pattern and then cut future professionals accordingly, is very proper to base upon, yet, in most cases the opportunities of higher school – industry cooperation are not even considered to the fullest, not to say used.

According to experts, the procedure of a competency model development includes four steps:
- gathering information about job roles,
- interviewing subject matter experts to discover current critical competencies and how they envision their roles changing in the future,
- identifying high-performer behaviors,
- creating, reviewing (or vetting) and delivering the competency model [Robinson et al. 2007].

Once developed, the competency model is used to support recruiting, performance management, career development, succession planning as well as other HR business processes [Mulder 2001].

But the most efficient way for a company to develop a competency model and tailor future professionals in accordance with it is to establish cooperation with a certain higher school able to integrate the competency model into its academic process and form and develop the required competencies all through the Degree or Master’s programmes.

Both parties benefit from this kind of cooperation – the higher school gets an opportunity to improve its curricula and gain a reliable employer for some of its graduates and the company spares a scope of unnecessary and often unjustified expenses that otherwise it would have to bear to develop the required competencies in employed graduates unaware of the company’s requirements.

The authors further discuss possible methods of deeper integration of the company into its future employees’ competencies development by the higher school and offer several models of higher school – employer cooperation.