Skill, Competency, Proficiency & Role

It’s quite often that we use the words Skill, Competency & Proficiency, many times interchangeably as well, to describe a capability. The capability to execute a task. The Capability to execute a task effectively and efficiently. The question is, are they but the same? Let's try to simplify & understand them better.

Skill is a learned ability. It typically comes by repetitive execution & or observation. For example, speaking a foreign language, driving a car, passing accounting entries, filling forms, operating a machine are some of the common skills that we come across in our day to day life & work.

Competency on the other hand is the demonstrable knowledge and behaviour in executing a task. About being consciously aware of the task. Competency is a holistic approach. It is combination of the soft skills and technical skills for a job. Wait did I say Skills here.  Yes of course. So, competency in essence is Skills + Knowledge + Behaviour. Skills are then a subset of Competency

Proficiency is the level of Competency. While for example Public Speaking is a competency, not everyone is proficient in it & need not be so as well. It depends on the role one has to execute. While a Public Relations Officer of an Organisation has to be proficient in Public Speaking, an Office Administrator need not be so. However, they both are expected to have certain amount of competency in this regard.

That brings us to the important step of defining a Role. Role is a combination of related tasks for a job. A typical example of related tasks for instance, in a production environment, can be like Setting up a Machine, Operating the Machine & Maintaining the Machine. These together constitute a job. This job is defined by a Role like Production Engineer or Maintenance Engineer.

For an organisation to excel, it is hence important to define these Roles clearly. And these Roles need various Competencies at specified proficiency levels. A proper understanding of these requirements and the deployment of the right tools to achieve this is the hallmark of a Successful Organisation