MyCompetence becomes an official state system
With the completion of the project "Development of the National Competence Assessment System - MyCompetence", implemented by the Bulgarian Industrial Association, in October 2019 the ownership and rights over the system will be transferred to the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. This makes MyCompetence an official state system.
The first phase of the project, launched in 2009 as an initial idea, MyCompetence has become a real innovative product - a unique national system that supports the development of human capital. This is a large-scale project funded by OP HRM that Bulgaria can be proud of. Partners in the implementation of the project are the nationally representative trade unions - CITUB and Podkrepa.
The www.competencemap.bg system site is regularly visited by 2.3 million people, and the various functional components and services of MyCompetence are used in practice by 40,000 registered active users - enterprises, universities, government institutions, consulting agencies, managers, specialists , teachers, students and job seekers.
What is this interest based on?
MyCompetence provides systematic information on the current labor market requirements for knowledge, skills, attitudes and expectations of successful employers in the workplace. The specialized electronic platform presents models of professional standards in 25 leading economic sectors, containing competency profiles of 1300 key business positions. This information is extremely valuable for improving the efficiency in the selection, training and development of human resources and the management of the employment performance of employees in enterprises. The labor market competency standards outlined in MyCompetence are an important prerequisite and basis for developing state education requirements for qualification, validation of knowledge and skills acquired outside formal education and training, for successful career development and facilitating the transition from learning to work, to anticipate the needs for new skills and to upgrade and refine them throughout the lifecycle. The system integrates and gives access to the European competence standards presented in the European Multilingual Classification of Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Professions - ESCO. This creates conditions for greater adaptability, capacity and competitiveness of the workforce in the global labor market. The established infrastructure of MyCompetence, comprising 25 sectoral advisory boards (employers, managers, HR professionals, representatives of educational institutions, employment and non-governmental organizations), allows for continuous updating of the standards of competence in accordance with the new trends in the development of economy, business and technology.
MyCompetence provides 20 tools (e-questionnaires and tests) to its users, free of charge, for assessing the level of competencies and competences acquired, an electronic training platform comprising 42 of its own training courses, and accessments to 14 international e-learning platforms. In the period 2015 - June 2019 alone, more than 25,000 individuals have successfully completed the online training courses and assessment tools based on the system.
MyCompetence has three electronic modules, which are extremely important for enterprise management and are developed in accordance with modern approaches in human resources development. These are: a module for developing company competence models and an internal system for assessing staff competencies; module for engineering (design, analysis, audit, evaluation) of the positions in the enterprise; module for assessing the needs and impact of staff training in the enterprise. At the disposal of the users of the system are created tax-specific for Bulgaria, such as National Competency Classifier, Electronic Catalog of Competences by Profession, Electronic Dictionary of Generic Competences, Glossary of Concepts in Competence-Based Management, Software Modules for Structuring and Comparison of Information in MyCompetence with ESCO and NQF (ЕQF). These new components and functionalities of the system contribute to increasing labor productivity, human capital efficiency, organizational efficiency, promoting investment in training and development, as well as more accurately measuring the return on investment in human resources.
The project "National Competence Assessment System - MyCompetence" is highly appreciated by CEDEFOP, the World Bank and the Delegation of the European Commission to Bulgaria. The HRM OP Monitoring Committee defines it as "one of the most successful Bulgarian projects with external funding".
What is the reason for this success?
First of all, MyCompetence is not just a project, it's a cause. It is linked to the vision for the dynamic development of the economy and the building of a society based on knowledge, ideas and the advancement of technology, the vision for the role of human potential, as a catalyst for change and a decisive factor for competitiveness. This cause brought together the efforts of hundreds of management, industry, human resources and industry professionals, industry and business professionals, scientists and educators who have done everything they can to turn the project into a reality.
