Browsing by Author "Kangasniemi, Marju"

Competence development has risen into important concept when it comes to companies competence. This is because business is even more services and information activities therefore intangible equities gain a higher meaning. In this research I am interesterd in the role of superior as a part of developing competence in one Finnish recruitment agency company. First, I examine the view of the company´s human resource director in competence development. After that I examine how the superiors develope the competence of their subordinates and how the subordinates see their superiors as competence developers. My research is qualitative. I gathered the data by interviewing company´s director of human resources and four other employee. Each of the employee has graduated from university-level and they were working in the company each one of them in a sector separate from another. Each interviewee also had a different superior. As a analysis method for data I used data-driven content analysis. With it, I formed the main categories for research results. The director of human resources told, that the company doesn’t have spesific rules for the superiors, how they should conduct the development of their subordinates competence. However the company aims to create a mutual vision for all of the superiors, what is good superior work and leadership. As for my research´s main groups as well as the most important part in superior´s competence development formed introduction, development planning and steering, encouraging and informing, monitoring development, valuation and feedback together with development discussions. The superiors of the interviewees worked yet again with a large variety. With two of the interviewees the superiors work in developing competence was versatile and consistent. Those interviewees were mostly satisfied with the competence development of their superiors. Two other interviewee´s superiors didn’t do as much to develope competence. They didn’t have proper development discussions, development plan, introduction had defiency and they didn’t feel the actions of superior as encouraging. Those interviewees would have wanted changes in their superior´s competence development.