1. Volkswagen South Africa – Competencies
Case Study Presented @ HR Forum
Creating a Competency Based Upgrading / Career Pathing
Model

2. Background to the Start of the
Initiative
 VWSA has a wide range of Technicians & Engineers
which work in various parts of the organization e.g.
Product Engineering, Manufacturing Planning,
Production, Quality etc
 These Engineers are found in a number of specialist
fields e.g. Component Engineers, Facilities
Engineers, Quality Engineers, MPL Engineers etc.
 To further complicate matters each of these
specialist fields is potentially represented by various
levels (per field) of Technicians, Senior Technicians,
Junior Engineers, Engineers, Senior Engineers and
Specialists
 The challenge was to create a system which would
enable the fair and equitable handling of Person
Upgrades, Career Pathing etc irrespective where the
Engineer / Technician worked.

3. Why VWSA went the
Competency Route
The initial driver behind this initiative
was to create a measurable,
transparent & more objective approach
to Upgrading Technicians & Engineers
irrespective of their job level or where
they worked functionally
The Engineering Project was used to
test the Competency Approach before
it was implemented into the whole
organization (as is currently happening)

4. How we approached the Project
 The Engineering Job Family was the pilot of the Competency
Project due to the complexity of job numbers and levels
 VWSA decided to use the Clayton Timms (People Software)
Competency Profiling methodology with it’s range of Software
Solutions
 A cross section of SME’s (subject matter experts) was
nominated to serve the interests of the various functional
engineering areas e.g. Quality, PE, MPL
 The process identified the Generic Engineering Competencies
i.e. those that were applicable irrespective where the function
worked and the Specific Engineering Competencies i.e. those
that were unique to each area
 These Competencies were then separated PER LEVEL of
Technician and Engineer
 This data was then fed back to all of the areas for further input /
validation

5. What were the results & where
are we currently
 A number of tests were conducted by Engineering
Management on People who had already been upgraded prior
to this project. In all cases they felt that the system validated
their decisions i.e. those who had been upgraded and were
performing well matched the Criteria set & where they felt that
the incumbents were not coping it was again validated by the
system as the system showed that these individuals would not
have been upgraded if the system was in use at the time.
 HR has developed an Upgrading procedure with clear selection
Criteria for the Upgrading of People in the organization that is
currently being rolled out to other areas.
 The project based on the Engineering success is currently
being implemented through out the company.
 We are in the process of implementing the CAT (Competency
Assessment Tool) Software of People Software which will allow
People to conduct Job Based Competency Assessments via
our Intranet. This tool will also become a pre-requisite for
Upgrading decisions

6. What were the results & where
are we currently
 A number of tests were conducted by Engineering
Management on People who had already been upgraded prior
to this project. In all cases they felt that the system validated
their decisions i.e. those who had been upgraded and were
performing well matched the Criteria set & where they felt that
the incumbents were not coping it was again validated by the
system as the system showed that these individuals would not
have been upgraded if the system was in use at the time.
 HR has developed an Upgrading procedure with clear selection
Criteria for the Upgrading of People in the organization that is
currently being rolled out to other areas.
 The project based on the Engineering success is currently
being implemented through out the company.
 We are in the process of implementing the CAT (Competency
Assessment Tool) Software of People Software which will allow
People to conduct Job Based Competency Assessments via
our Intranet. This tool will also become a pre-requisite for
Upgrading decisions