EMPLOYEE TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT AND COMPETENCY-BASED APPROACH: ANY RELATIONSHIP?

The article focuses on the relationship between the use of employee training and development and the competency-based approach. The objective of this article is to evaluate the use of the competency-based approach in employee training and development in organisations in the Czech Republic based on long-term research ( n = 1,360) since the year 2013. The results showed that the competency-based approach in the management of organisations is utilized by only 21.8% of the organisations. An important finding is that 93.2% of organisations using the competency-based approach support employee training and development. The results confirmed that there is the relationship between the use of the competency-based approach and training and development in the organisation ( p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.178) and also between the use of the competency-based approach and evaluation of training and development efficiency in the organisation ( p < 0.001, Cramer’s V = 0.299).


INTRODUCTION
In the current dynamic business environment, an organisation's management must be aware of the importance of the training and development of its employees.Employee competencies thus play a key role in the strategic development of organisations.According to Mitchelmore and Rowley (2010), the concept of competency has many forms and applications.Research in the field of competencies and practical experience in organisations is driven by the aspiration to achieve superior performance at the individual and organisational levels.In the field of management, competencies essentially have two main meanings, from which the individual definitions of competencies are further based.The first characterises competencies as power and scope of authority relating to a particular person or body.In the second sense, competencies represent qualifications.
The concept of competencies in the second sense was first introduced by White (1959) when he emphasised the influence of competencies on motivation and performance in his work.McClelland (1973) then raised the question of why intelligence tests should be so important in selecting candidates for university or employment and considered the importance of competence testing.Later, Boyatzis (1982) emphasised the difference between a task that needs to be accomplished and the skills and other qualities that a person must have to accomplish it to the required standard.That is, he made a distinction between what is to be done (the intended result of activity) and which actions are required to complete the task excellently (Kubeš et al., 2004).It means, according to Boyatzis (1982), effective and/or superior job performance.
Based on the work of McClelland (1973) and other

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1803-1617 colleagues, Spencer and Spencer (1993) summarised the knowledge in the field of competence over 20 years to clarify the development of this issue, which led to a shift in the perception of the concept of competence not only in terms of content but also formally.That is a move from the English word 'competence' to the introduction and definition of the term 'competency'.The importance of distinguishing between these two terms is confirmed, for example, by Woodruffe (1993), who emphasised the significant difference between the aspects of work in which a person is competent (competence) and the aspects of a person that allow them to be competent, i.e., competency.According to Teodorescu (2006), there are many differences and several similar features between the two terms in their definitions, areas of focus, and application.In order the organisation can support, train, and develop the right competencies of employees, first, the organisation has to define competences for each job position (Teodorescu, 2006).Sanghi (2016) saw the main difference in the fact that in one concept, we focus on what people can do, while in the other how they do it.Sanghi (2016) added that even in the plural of each word they do not have the same meaning -competences and competencies are not the same.
In this context, Moore et al. (2002) pointed out many confusions within the area of performance assessment about using terminology and differing interpretations regarding competence assessment.But, although the authors define competencies and their components differently, a closer examination involves different definitions with small differences, the common denomination is observable behaviour in the workplace (Sanghi, 2016).Distinguishing between the way you work, and the results allows you to manage performance much more effectively.
Competencies are closely linked to human resource management.In his work, Boyatzis (1982) addressed the idea that competencies can be used as a basis for the development of an integrated human resources management system.In the global competitive environment, the competency-based approach and the competencies that individuals need to acquire and develop should be the major focus (Lawler, 1994).The main feature of the competency-based approach in human resource management is the transition from staffrelated operational issues to higher strategic importance tasks (Tymoshyk, 2020).According to Armstrong and Taylor (2014), this approach has a positive impact on personnel processes, especially those related to recruitment, training and development, performance management, remuneration, and succession planning (Wesselink et al., 2015).In the age of globalisation, human resource competencies are becoming essential for organisations (Serim et al., 2014).
Competency-based training has become widely used terminology since the turn of the twenty-first century (Cate, 2017), although this approach is not new.According to Emerson and Berge (2018), competency-based training and development is an innovative approach and an asset to organisations focused on improving the performance of their employees and offering a more efficient way of training and development (Fejfarová and Fejfar, 2016).The competency-based approach to training and development emphasizes the specification and assessment of outcomes (competencies).This focus on outcomes is often contrasted with more traditional training and development programs (Bowden and Masters, 1993).This article focuses on the use of the competency-based approach in employee training and development.The main objective of this article is to evaluate the use of the competency-based approach in employee training and development in organisations in the Czech Republic based on long-term research and to examine relationships between selected qualitative variables to verify the conclusions made.
The article is structured as follows: First, the summary of the theoretical background is presented in the Introduction.
The section Materials and Methods describes the research methods and statistical techniques.The gathered findings are evaluated in the Results.The results achieved and presented are then elaborated on and compared in the Discussion.This part also identifies the benefits and limitations of the article.The section Conclusion summarises the main findings.The section References contain a list of used sources.

Data
The data were obtained through a questionnaire survey.First, preliminary research was carried out, which served to verify the accuracy and comprehensibility of individual questions, evaluate the appropriate categorisation of answers, and the ability verify partial null hypotheses and the technical processability of data.Research focusing on the use of the competency-based approach in organisations in the Czech Republic was conducted for a period of more than five years starting in 2013 and partial results were presented continuously (Fejfarová and Urbancová, 2015;Fejfarová and Fejfar;2016;Fejfarová and Fejfar, 2017).The sample consisted of organisations operating in the Czech Republic.1,477 selected organisations participated in the questionnaire survey.To enhance the quality of the questionnaire survey, it was required for the questionnaire to be completed by an HR specialist or an owner of the given organisation.As the survey lasted more than five years and some organisations participated repeatedly, it was necessary to cleanse the sample of duplicate data.Thus, adjusted, the final sample encompassed 1,360 organisations.The structure of the sample is shown in Table 1.

Research questions and hypotheses
We thought about the relationship between using employee training and development and the competency-based approach and formulated the following research questions: • RQ1: Is there any relationship between employee training and development and the use of the competency-based approach in organisations?• RQ2: Is there any relationship between employee training and development and the use of the competency-based approach in organisations?

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After clarification of the key-dependent and independent variables, we formulated 2 null hypotheses: • H 01 : There is no relationship between employee training and development and the use of the competency-based approach in organisations.• H 02 : There is no relationship between the evaluation of the employee training and development efficiency and the use of the competency-based approach in organisations.The data have been processed using absolute and relative frequencies using IBM SPSS Statistics 26.The testing was done by Pearson's Chi-Square Test of Independence.The level of significance was set at 0.05.To interpret the strength of relationship coefficients (Cramer's V), a scale according to de Vaus ( 2014) was used.To identify a relationship between two initial variables (X and Y), it was necessary to identify another variable that might account for the relationship and conduct the analysis to see if this other (test) variable (Z) does explain the initial bivariate relationship (de Vaus, 2014).The testing of the test variable is based on maintaining it at a constant value.This compensates for the distorting effect of this test variable on the relationship between the initial two variables.

Use of the competency-based approach in organisations
The results of the survey showed that the competency-based approach in the management of organisations is utilised by only 21.8% of the organisations in question.The competency-based approach is most often utilised by large organisations (36.7% from addressed large organisations), followed by mediumsized organisations (20.1% from addressed medium-sized organisations), and the least by small organisations (13.3% from addressed small organisations).Organisations utilising the competency-based approach do so mainly in the following areas: employee appraisal (224 organisations; 75.7%), employee training and development (209 organisations; 70.6%), employee selection (189 organisations; 63.9%), recruitment (160 organisations; 54.1%), job analysis (128 organisations; 43.2%), career planning and management (95 organisations; 32.1%), and team building (92 organisations; 31.1%).The results of the survey show that organisations do not utilise the competency-based approach in all areas equally.When searching for and selecting employees, and in their evaluation, training and development, it is always necessary to proceed from the established competency model for a given position.Although the key areas of use include the search for and selection of employees, and their evaluation, training and development, i.e., personnel activities that usually precede the management of employees' careers, organisations do not make much use of the competency-based approach in the field of career management.The above results confirm the importance of using the competency-based approach in employee evaluation, training and development.In this sense, it is the use of individual competencies, which are defined as the individual characteristics necessary to achieve the required level of employee performance.The use of the competency-based approach in employee training and development is important, especially because it facilitates the correct definition of the content of employee training and development in accordance with the competencies that need to be applied in their jobs.Every job position requires that the employee has individual competencies that have been developed to the required level.The development of competencies then focuses on reducing and evening out the differences between the real and ideal state.For this reason, it is important to identify which competencies are to be developed in relation to the employee's specific position, i.e., respond to a specific need for training and development.Therefore, we further focused on employee training and development in organisations using the competency-based approach.

Employee training and development in organisations using the competency-based approach
The results of the survey showed that 93.2% of organisations using the competency-based approach support employee training and development.For comparison, the results from the original sample (n = 1,360; 79.7%) are presented.That means that we compared two samples -the sample of organisations using the competency-based approach (n = 296) and the sample of all organisations (n = 1,360).The results are shown in Table 2.For this reason, the relationships between selected variables were examined, i.e., training and development of employees and use of the competency-based approach in the organisation (H 01 ) and the evaluation of the training and development efficiency and use of the competency-based approach in the organisation (H 02 ).Organisations utilising the competency-based approach, and that also evaluate the efficiency of the training process (n = 180), most often evaluate employees' reactions immediately after training, the objectives fulfilment defined by the employee training and development plan, informal feedback from line managers and trained employees themselves, the evidence of the total number of training days per employee, job observation and measurement of job performance before and after training (immediately or after a certain period).

Elaboration analysis
Because both null hypotheses were rejected, there was a suspicion that these results may be affected by another factor -the size of the organisation.That would mean that more interest in employee training and development do not have organisations using the competence-based approach but organisations that are large (according to the number of employees of the organisation with more than 250 employees).

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This third variable (size of organisation) can cause concurrent changes in both monitored variables.The purpose of elaboration analysis is to better understand the relationship between the initial two variables (X and Y) and to elaborate on what lies behind the correlation of these two variables (de Vaus, 2014).To prove that the observed relationships are true, the third test (control) variable (Z) was considered.This test variable might influence the relationship between the initial two variables.Tables 6 and 9 show the modified contingency tables.Row percentages are not stated because of the table scope and clarity.In Tables 7 and 10, it is possible to compare three groups of test results based on Pearson's Chi-Square Test of Independence.The strengths of the relationships are shown in Tables 8 and 11.A more detailed elaboration analysis, made possible by the classification of the third-tier data, showed that all the conclusions drawn about the relationship between the initial two variables were true.If the relationships shown in all the conditional coefficients are like the zero-order relationship (X and Y), it is possible to confirm that the initial relationship is not due to the influence of the test variable (Z).Some correlations are a little bit weaker or stronger than the initial correlations of 0.178 and 0.299, but the drop/increase in correlations is small.Therefore, we should regard the conditionals as being the same as the zero-order (de Vaus, 2002).

DISCUSSION
Competencies are among the factors that influence employees' performance (Nguyen et al., 2020) and generate the value for achieving the competitive advantage (Fenech et al., 2019).Nowadays, employees must have high competencies which are able to respond to the business environment changes to improve their performance (Sabuhari et al., 2020).Therefore, organisations are constantly developing innovative and effective means to engage the employees to feel committed to the organisation and stay motivated during this tough time of the COVID-19 pandemic (Chanana and Sangeeta, 2021).Leadership must be created by leaders with high competencies who can overcome challenges and take advantage of new opportunities to achieve competitive advantage and adopt change (Talu and Nazarov, 2020).The quality of knowledge is more important than quantity, and for this, it is critical to cultivate the skills of employees and further develop their competencies (Ghezir et al., 2021).Competency-based training and development can thus be understood as a whole lifetime process (Cejas Martínez et al., 2019).Brightwell and Grant (2013) emphasize that competency-based training and development describe progression through the demonstrated ability to perform certain tasks.Although the identification of competencies is important for companies (Berková and Holečková, 2022), the competency-based approach is still considered an emerging practice (Quesnay et al., 2021).Therefore, the evolution from competency-based training and development to competencybased practice is inevitable (Cate and Carraccio, 2019).The survey showed that the competency-based approach is used only by every fifth organisation in the sample, which is even less than stated by the survey HR Monitor® Červenková (2016), according to which competency models are used in every third organisation.In this case, however, the sample consisted of only 300 organisations.The results of the survey also showed that the four main areas in which competencies are used in organisations are employee appraisal (75.7%), employee training and development (70.6%), employee selection (63.9%) and recruitment (54.1%), which follows the conclusions presented by Armstrong (2009).However, the percentages in particular categories are slightly different.Statuary and mandatory training are insufficient for the improvement of labour efficiency and business performance and therefore, managers have to pay particular attention to employees' personal development, engagement and motivation.The competency-based approach formulates objectives in a way that leads to the improvement of business performance by achieving better results, changing employee behaviour, increasing productivity and efficiency of the organisation (Tymoshyk. 2020).The use of the competency-based approach in employee training and development facilitates the correct definition of the content of employee training and development in accordance with the competencies that need to be applied in their jobs.Competencies are measurable outcomes of training, assessed in the workplace as knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviours, which allow evaluating work performance in a transparent and reproducible manner (The CoBaTrICE Collaboration, 2006).The training and development of employees benefit an organisation in many ways -it expands the work potential of employees, and thus the possibilities for the dynamic development of both work teams and, ultimately, the organisation as a whole.Bowden and Masters (1993) state that the competencybased approach to training and development reduces the period necessary for learning the demands of the practice of the workplace.However, to achieve this effect, the organisations' training and development programs must have a clear concept about anticipated future changes.At the same time, it is necessary to continuously evaluate the benefits of training and development programs (even if it is a complex issue -suitable criteria are the competencies of the employee (achievement of a higher level of competencies) and the subsequent improvement of work performance).The training and development courses must match the performance objectives and meet the identified training needs (Schultz et al., 2012).Training service quality is strategically crucial due to its ability in establishing satisfaction, trust, and motivation of employees which will impact their achievement during the training process (Budiyanti et al., 2020).Getha-Taylor and Morse (2013) emphasize the importance of a strategic  The COVID-19 pandemic has led to new ways of working and a renewed focus on employees (Mihalache and Mihalache, 2022).Organisations need to rely on human resource development now more than before, which can further the agenda of human resource development to secure a seat on the strategic table (Dirani et al., 2020).The major strategic human resource management outcomes at the individual level are the involvement, commitment, engagement, and retention of employees; at the organisation level, its outcomes have an impact on the organisation's performance, reputation, and attractiveness (Chams and García-Blandón, 2019).
The results of the survey are limited by the selection of the sample.While the sample is suitable for data mining and allows the evaluation of the use of the competency-based approach in the relevant organisations, the conclusions cannot be generalised to all organisations operating in the Czech Republic (population).Ensuring the representativeness of a sample is a common problem faced not only by researchers, research teams and consulting companies (e.g., Armstrong, 2009;KPMG, 2010;Červenková, 2016, etc.) but also by central state administration bodies.Another problem may be the interpretation of Cramer's V.In order not to make subjective conclusions, an established scale (de Vaus, 2014) has been used for interpretation, which is used in several similar studies.

CONCLUSION
In accordance with the resource approach to creating a competitive advantage, it is precisely employees who, thanks to their competencies, become an important source for achieving a competitive advantage.However, the benefit of utilising competencies lies mainly in their application.The use of the competency-based approach thus represents an effective tool for systematic work with human resources within an organisation.Therefore, in our long-term research, we examined the level of human resource management in organisations using the competency-based approach.This article presents the partial results in the field of employee training and development.For this reason, we examined the relationship between using employee training and development and the competency-based approach.Both hypotheses H 01 and H 02 were rejected.The results of the Pearson's Chi-Square tests confirmed that organisations that use the competencybased approach place more emphasis on the training and development of their employees than organisations that do not use the competency-based approach.At the same time, in several cases, these organisations systematically evaluate the efficiency of employee training and development.

Table 1 : Structure of the sample, 2013-2021 (source: own survey)
Table3shows the results of Pearson's Chi-Square Test of Independence.The null hypothesis (H 01 ) is rejected.The results of the test of H 01 showed that there is the relationship between the use of the competency-based approach and training and development in the organisation (p < 0.001, Cramer's V = 0.178).The value of Cramer's V shows that the strength of the relationship is low.

Table 3 : Pearson's Chi-Square Test of Independence for contingency table 1, 2013 -2021 (source: own survey)
Although most organisations that utilise the competencybased approach are dedicated to the training and development of their employees (276 from 296 organisations; 93.2%), not all these organisations systematically evaluate the efficiency of employee training and development.Only 65.2% of organisations evaluate the efficiency of training (180 from 276 organisations, 65.2%).For comparison, the results from the original sample of organisations that train and develop their employees (n = 1,084; 40.1%) are again presented.As this is a complimentary issue related to training and development, the sample is smaller because is cleansed from organisations that do not support the training and development of their employees.Training and development efficiency was monitored only in organisations that train and develop their employees.The results are shown in Table4.

Table 4 : Contingency table 2, 2013 -2021 (source: own survey)
Table5shows the results of Pearson's Chi-Square Test of Independence.The null hypothesis (H 02 ) is rejected.The results of the test of H 02 showed that there is the relationship between the use of the competency-based approach and the evaluation of training and development efficiency in the organisation (p < 0.001, Cramer's V = 0.299).The value of Cramer's V shows that the strength of the relationship is moderate.

Table 7 : Pearson's Chi-Square Test of Independence for modified contingency table 1, 2013 -2021 (source: own survey)
In Table7, three groups of Pearson's Chi-Square test results are compared.The results obtained are still convincing because the null hypothesis (H 01 ) is rejected in all three groups at the 5% level of significance.The dependency rates are shown in Table8.The Cramer's V value in the Total category matches the value stated in Table3.In Table10, three groups of Pearson's Chi-Square test results are also compared.The results obtained are still convincing because the null hypothesis (H 02 ) is rejected in all three groups at the 5% level of significance.The dependency rates are shown in Table11.The Cramer's V value in the Total category matches the value stated in Table5.