Should we have our own in-house best practice certification scheme?
When employees pass a generic best practice exam, does it ensure that they can adapt these principles to the business context and relevance of our organisation?
Many companies require their employees to obtain certification in generic best practice courses such as ITIL, PRINCE2, Agile, DevOps, and COBIT. These courses provide a framework of methodologies, techniques, and practices. But does passing these exams guarantee that employees will apply these principles effectively within their specific organisational contexts? Clearly, the answer is no.
From my experience interviewing candidates with such certifications, I've often found that despite their credentials, many struggle to recall the principles and methodologies they were tested on, particularly if significant time has passed since they took the exam. This reminds me of my own experience of passing a German exam in secondary school yet being unable to converse in German today.
While these certifications are important for acknowledging achievement, they offer limited assurance of practical application or business value. Having a certificate indicates familiarity with generic principles and may qualify someone for a role, but it doesn't ensure that they will benefit the business or succeed in the position.
Thus, while adopting industry-standard frameworks is crucial, it is equally important to tailor them to fit our organisational needs. The solution is straightforward: we should complement generic industry certifications with our own in-house certification scheme.
Just as students take generic exams to demonstrate their knowledge to an examination institute, employees should take internal company-branded exams to show their understanding of their roles within the specific context of our organisation. As an interviewer, I would value a candidate's ITIL certificate more if it were accompanied by an internal company-branded certificate that shows practical, contextual understanding.
Therefore, why not consider implementing your own in-house company-branded certification scheme?
As we work towards having baseline standard and skill set, as well as seeing how we can enable peopleto grow their skills, having an agree standard with examination and certification can only be a good thing. Even better is how to maintain and grow the skill,moving from theory into applied.