Final conference of the project "Development of a Public Administration Competency Framework"

At the final conference of the project "Development of a Public Administration Competency Framework", held at Hrvatski novinarski dom, Zagreb, on February 13, the results of the project aimed at improving human resources in public administration business processes were presented.

The objectives of this project included the development of a competency model for managerial and non-managerial civil servants in public administration and the improvement of the competencies of managerial civil servants and those employed in units responsible for human resources which will be important for the application of the competency model in the business processes of public administration bodies.

The project included the design and testing of a competency model for employees in public administration bodies, which contains general, specific and managerial competencies, the development of a uniform methodology for job analysis and assessment, establishment of job complexity criteria and workload analysis, the analysis of the necessary competencies for the performance of tasks in public administration bodies, and the development of functional requirements for the IT system for the management of the competency model in public administration bodies.

For the purpose of facilitating the introduction of the competency model in public administration bodies, guidelines were developed for the establishment of an organisational structure for the management of the competency model, as well as a competency model application manual and an operational plan for the implementation of the competency model.

"As is the case with other public/government sector initiatives and reforms, the introduction of competency-based human resources management is a lengthy process. This project was focused on establishing a catalogue of general, specific and managerial competences and their levels for individual groups of jobs in public administration and on creating job profiles and functional requirements for the development of an IT tool which is necessary and useful for the introduction of competencies in the human resources management processes  in public administration", said State Secretary Josip Salapić.

In three-day training programmes, 240 managerial civil servants and civil servants of HR management units were introduced to the competency model, and in order to ensure the sustainability of the results, 10 trainers were trained to conduct workshops on the application of the competency model in public administration bodies, and e-Learning content was created.

"This project is the first step of a new approach to human resources management, and the Croatian public administration needs to implement the proposed competency model and continue to develop or upgrade it. These activities will be managed by the Ministry of Justice and Public Administration in cooperation with sectoral bodies", State Secretary Salapić concluded.

The project was co-financed by the European Social Fund under the Operational Programme Efficient Human Resources 2014-2020, its total value was HRK 13,092,015.91, and it was implemented in cooperation with the National School of Public Administration as a project partner.