When guidelines are not enough. This is why the competence work fails in practice.

We often see that the guidelines are good, but the systems and structures around them are too weak.

Much responsibility on a small system

Most organizations treat competence assessment as a one-off responsibility. Employees are informed about the rules, perhaps they sign a self-declaration upon hiring, and then the assessments are left to each individual's conscience, judgment, and memory.

This leads to:

• Assessments not being documented

• Reporting occurs unstructured (via email, Excel, or verbally)

• Management lacks an overview of exposures among employees

• There is no traceability during audits, inspections, or whistleblower cases

The result is an organization that appears reliable on paper, but in practice, it is difficult to know whether competence assessments are actually taking place, and how.

Ad hoc solutions create risk

The lack of structure leads to both inefficiency and creates real risk:

• Decisions can be questioned afterward

• Media coverage can impact the organization's reputation

• Inspections can reveal lack of documentation

We have seen how small competency breaches, intentional or not, can grow into large cases. Not because the assessment itself was necessarily wrong, but because it was never documented.

From formal compliance to real control

Compliance is no longer just about having rules; it is about being able to demonstrate that they are followed in practice. This means that the organization must have a system to:

• Allow employees to report new exposures such as ownership and roles

• Collect self-declarations and information about relationships

• Notify of deviations and potential conflicts of interest

• Facilitate assessment and documentation

• Document actions over time

This must be done as simply as possible so that it is actually used by both managers and employees. 

What Arx Compliance has learned

In working with public and private clients, we have found that the lack of willingness is not the issue. It is often a lack of a simple and modern system. When management gets a tool that makes it easy to follow up, and employees get a safe and user-friendly solution for reporting, competence turns from an obligation into a practice.

Are you unsure how you actually work with competence in practice?

Contact us at Arx Compliance. We help organizations build structure, not just policy.