BUILDING A EUROPEAN THEORY OF GR AND A FRAMEWORK TO SUPPORT THE PROFESSIONALISATION AND ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT OF GR PRACTITIONERS

It is incumbent upon the GR industry  

• To map and understand the actions and activities of GR Practitioners specifically in the European landscape;
• To build knowledge and understanding of what GR Practitioners do, but also what skills and knowledge they need to develop to have a shared meaning and understanding of the practice.

Our main focus should be to develop a better understanding of the competencies held by GR Practitioners and the contributing knowledge, skills and personal attributes that are relevant to their role. This calls for:

• Dissecting the role of the GR Practitioner
• Identifying skills, knowledge and personal attributes
• How knowledge and skills are used in performance
• Determining Skills deficit
• Competencies

Competencies are the underlying foundational abilities that are integral to successfully carrying out the tasks and responsibilities, and thus remain a stable blueprint for practice over time.

Competences provide a link between education (and skills) and job requirements (roles). A distinction should be made between:

1. Conceptual Competence which refers to knowledge about the GR practice;
2. Procedural competence which refers to the application of conceptual competence in a particular situation;
3. Performance competence which is required to assess problems and select a suitable strategy for solving them .

There are two categories of competencies for GR Practitioners:

(1) specific qualifications – those qualifications which are directly connected to the topic of GR ; and

(2) unspecific qualifications – those qualifications, like leadership, which can be seen as a core competence for GR Practitioners.

Definitions

Knowledge: What practitioners are required to know to perform their job.

Skills: The activities involving ideas, people or technical skills which practitioners perform with ease.

Personal Attributes: The character traits, attitudes and values practitioners require.

Competency: The combination of skills, knowledge and personal attributes that leads to superior performance for practitioners.