Building Blocks of High-Performing Organizations: Competence
What if I told you that the key to employee retention and productivity isn’t salary or perks, but something simpler and more profound? It’s rooted in our psychology and shapes both how and why we work. In this article, I’m inviting you to explore one of modern psychology’s key insights into motivation and satisfaction.
Self-Determination Theory (SDT), a framework that has revolutionized our understanding of how and why we achieve our best at work and in life, suggests that there are three basic psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness. These threeare not merely nice-to-haves. They are essential, foundational components of our wellbeing, inherent to human nature.
Basic psychological needs are universal, innate, and independent of our cultural background. And, as research suggests, meeting or frustrating these needsimpacts everything from personal happiness to professional performance.
Understanding Competence in the Workplace
While this article focuses on competence, in future articles, I’ll explore how autonomy (our sense of freedom) and relatedness (our sense of connection with others) are equally vital to creating a thriving workplace.
Competence, according to the SDT, is one of the three key psychological needs that involves feeling skilled and capable. It’s the internal understanding that you can interact effectively with your environment and achieve what you want. This isn’t about nonstop success or never facing challenges; rather, it’s about having the confidence and the tools to tackle tasks effectively.
The need for competence comes from our natural desire to improve and grow. It’s like when you learn programming or try to get better at tennis—you feel good because you’re making progress.
It’s likely that the last time you felt you had a good day at work was when you felt competent and capable of tackling the tasks on your plate.
The Impact of Competence on Employee Motivation and Performance
Research supports the idea that feeling competent is a key driver of motivation and performance. When people feel competent, they are more likely to engage deeply with their tasks and experience higher levels of overall wellbeing.
A workplace that supports its employees’ sense of competence sees numerous benefits:
• Increased job satisfaction: Employees experience a deep sense of pride in their work, that drives a continuous desire for self-improvement and excellence.
• Enhanced performance: Competent workers are more efficient and produce higher quality work.
• Lower turnover rates: When employees feel skilled and valued, they are less likely to seek other opportunities.
Conversely, a lack of competence can lead to dissatisfaction, disengagement, and burnout.
How to Support Competence in Your Employees?
Building a sense of competence at work doesn’t happen by accident. It requires intentional strategies and processes in place.
When it comes to increasing competence, many new managers might consider replacing current staff with more experienced workers as a quick fix. While fresh talent can indeed empower a team, this approach risks damaging trust and ultimately can be costly for the company. So, here we’ll focus on more sustainable options.
Supporting competence in employees can happen at different levels:
Level 1: Education. Probably the most obvious one. Continuous learning is the foundation of competence. Organizations can support this by offering varied training programs, access to courses, and providing mentorshipfor professional growth. Encouraging employees to pursue knowledge not only helps them feel more competent but also keeps them mentally and emotionally engaged with their work.
Often though, companies provide learning budgets but fail to ensure that these opportunities are used. Additionally, managers often do not offer guidance on the direction employees should take for their development. This is a missed opportunity for both parties.
Level 2: Job design. Crafting tasks that align with an employee’s skill level is crucial. Our jobs should be challenging enough to remain engaging but not toodifficult that they become frustrating. Keeping the challenge just a bit above the employee capabilities results in a state known as “flow”, the state of immersion in one’s work that enhances productivity and happiness.
Maintaining an excessively high workload to get by with fewer employees or to ‘keep employees from getting bored’ is a treacherous trap that leads to reduced creativity, increased errors, and ultimately, burnout. To avoid this, regularly check in with your staff to assess where they stand on the spectrum from being bored to being overwhelmed and take measures before it’s too late.
Level 3: Quality feedback. This is often overlooked because we’re dealing with perceived competence. When someone is performing well, they need to hear it to feel competent. That’s why feedback is essential for growth—but it needs to be done right.
For feedback to be effective it needs to be timely, specific, and constructive. It should focus on efforts and achievements, not just the end results. This type of feedback helps employees understand what they’re doing well and what they can improve without feeling judged or discouraged.
For our intrinsic motivation, which is essential for achieving maximum productivity, receiving positive feedback is critical. Research suggests that to boost internal motivation, giving no feedback is even better than giving only negative feedback. Therefore, take your time to praise your employees effectively.
Challenges in Fostering Competence
While the benefits of fostering competence are clear, there are challenges that organizations must navigate.
One major obstacle is finding the right balance of difficulty for each employee. Everyone possesses unique skills, experiences, learning pace, personality type and aspirations. Recognizing and accommodating these differences is crucial for making every team member feel competent and valued. Staying attuned to these individual needs requires a significant investment of time from managers—but it pays off. A team that feels supported in their sense of competence contributes to a more productive and resilient workplace.
Conclusion
Competence isn’t just about skill acquisition; it’s a core element of a thriving and high-performing organization. By understanding and actively supporting employees’ competence, companies can build an environment where individuals excel and contribute to the organization’s overall success. Great workplaces are defined by their commitment to fostering optimal conditions where employees can grow, and in turn, the company will grow with them.
Resources
• Csikszentmihalyi, M., 1990. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Harper & Row.