Geoff,
This type of scheme, the KSF frameworks, was explained to me by a
person who implements these types of things. I hope I’m not teaching you
to suck eggs here, but this is my humble view: KSFs apply to all industries
(don’t feel picked on) - medical, defence, commerce, industrial, it’s
a management style. Senior management style has had to change over the last few
decades as companies have got much bigger, more multinational. As we know in
the NHS, the lines of communication between the ‘top’ and
‘bottom’ spheres of existence are increasingly impeded and obscured
for various reasons. So as an MD (the legal buck stops with you), what can you
do to control your company to such a fine extent that you can sleep safely with
the knowledge that your product or service meets and exceeds the applicable
International standards? You have 50,000 employees working in five continents.
Not even Tony Blair in his cabinet centric days could sit on team that wide
spread to the detail we read about in KSFs.
So, departments become semi-autonomous and KSF templates are spread
around in an effort to pin down precise activities, scopes, responsibilities
etc. They are akin, in legal detail, to a technical specification .. a human
resource specification. I was asked to manage a KSF system for a Prison and quickly
found that the idea is being spread across industries that probably don’t
need this sort of scheme. In your case - you are at the top of your tree, so
what point is there for you to do it? I’d say to you: How much space do
you have to write in the boxes? How much detail do you feel compelled to write?
In the Prison some forms came back to me packed with detail, others were
scribbled in crayon .. we filed away each form never to be seen until the next
review and a big box was ticked on the annual site review form. I can’t
say what it is like for the NHS, but in some industries it does make a
lot of difference and it does make some peoples lives a lot easier somewhere in
the system. To us though it’s a case of taking a crude template and
stretching in a way that tells others what we do, when we’re all happy
with the terminology.
In the future it’ll probably mean a lot more .. when robots
employ us they can ask for people ‘with skill set 00112a’ or vice
versa!
Graham Webb
Dept. of Medical Physics and Bioengineering
St Georges Hospital, London.
From: A discussion list
for Assistive Technology professionals.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Panton Liz (RM6) Northgate & Prudhoe NHS Trust
Sent: 26 January 2007 17:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: KSF for Assistive
Technologists
Hi Geoff,
FAST are doing some work on this:
http://www.fastuk.org/atforumactivities/workforcedevelopment.php
The other place where there is some directly
relevant info (and rather more nick from other professions) is here:
http://www.skillsforhealth.org.uk/
The Skills For Health site includes an online
tool for mapping KSF to Skills For Health competencies. I have found that
an easier way around to match them up than starting from the KSF end of things.
Best wishes,
Liz Panton
Head of Service
Communicate
Featurenet: 8785 5640
Telephone: 0191 219 5640
Fax: 0191 219 5647
Email for General Enquiries: [log in to unmask]
-----Original
Message-----
From: A
discussion list for Assistive Technology professionals. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of Geoff Harbach
Sent: Friday, January 26, 2007
5:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: KSF for Assistive
Technologists
I am trying to get my
head round this whole business of the KSF competencies.
Is anyone working on one
for Assistive Technologists, because it seems to me that we need an unusual mix
of skills in order to do what we do. This being medical and technical skills
along with clinical skills such as assessment for EC and AAC equipment, let
alone weird and wonderful solutions for new and difficult problems.
Throw in postural
management, IT, computer and SLT skills, and none of the existing
competency sets seem to be completely applicable.
And when you have got a
profile, what do you do with it, do you just go around documenting and
justifying all the things you have been doing for years anyway - can't quite
see the point in it.
There is no position
where I am, higher than the one I have got now to move up to, so what would I
be working towards? Can I go up a pay band on the basis of advanced
competencies earned?