Seach
Continuous development of Comatec Group’s personnel is an absolute prerequisite for maintaining competitiveness and for responding to our clients’ demands. Developing and maintaining competencies related to the management and administration of projects is one of the focal areas for Comatec Group. At Comatec, we believe it is important that our most important asset – our competence – meets our customers’ needs as closely as possible.
Comatec Group is an expert organisation whose competitive edge primarily consists of competence and a meaningful working method that supports productivity. At Comatec, we believe it is important that our competence meets our customers’ needs as closely as possible.
In competence development, the goals of the organisation, the competence and interests of the individual, and the results of their work should be linked together so that we can provide our customers with correctly targeted competence in an efficient manner. It is also important to us that all Comatec employees have the possibility to experience success and new challenges that suit their individual competencies.
In competence development, we take into account the sector-specific competencies most important to our customers, areas of professional competence, and Comatec’s internal operating methods.
At Comatec, we draw up a training plan every year, which includes an assessment of the status of the personnel’s competences and areas identified for development, as well as a plan for competence development.
For competence management, Comatec uses a competence map combining the competence required for the company’s operations and the competencies of individual employees. This competence map allows us to systematically manage the competence of our personnel, the required areas of development and the targets.
The information in the competence map is used e.g. in planning customer projects. The management of competence information both supports and enhances sales, as well as planning and allocating resources for projects. When used systematically, the information also improves the quality of our services, allowing us to allocate competencies to our customers’ needs and respond to them in a timely manner.
Career paths at Comatec Group support the personnel in their development. The duties and responsibilities of individual jobs have been defined for the career paths. There are three different career paths: the expert path, the project path and the manager path.
Most of our personnel work on the expert path where work mainly consists of design work, which may be expert work related to larger solutions or in-depth expert work related to a single subject.
Our Energy Efficient Motion Control team is a prime example of in-depth expertise. Finland is one of the world’s leading countries in research and development of electrical and hydraulic drives. Finnish experts are among the best in the world. Comatec’s experts in the Energy Efficient Motion Control team are among these pioneers.
In addition to design work, employees on the project path have duties related to project competence. Both project management-related competence and technical competence are key issues on the project path.
We are experienced project operatives in different applications of industrial and machine manufacturing. Our customers appreciate our ability to allocate resources and implement extensive projects utilising the competence of Comatec to the full. Project competence is very important to us, and we also want to invest resources in our training activities to improve it.
The duties of employees on the manager path include sales and account management. The managers look after projects and lead the design work. They also have administrative managerial duties and responsibility for the competence development of their own staff.
Comatec organises both internal and external training. Training is coordinated by HR Specialist Anne Talvitie.
“Internal training is provided by our experts, who discuss matters related to their respective areas of expertise. In these cases, the training sessions concern subjects necessary for other designers. An example of this is our internal machine safety training sessions,” Anne Talvitie says.
“In this one-day training course, we discuss the requirements for the CE marking on design work, we introduce the most salient EU directives, and we give instructions for specifying and applying the required standards in design work. Machine safety training is part of the training plan related to risk management. We provide this training to every employee working with machine design.”
“Next year, we will provide training on strength calculation as a new internal training,” Anne says.
Ensuring that the personnel have sufficient competence regarding the standards, legislation and regulations guiding design work is vitally important for quality and risk management.
Quality training, mainly implemented as internal training, concentrates on Comatec’s operating system, its methods and the tools to be used.
Comatec Group’s operating system complies with the requirements of SFS-EN ISO 9001:2008. A certified operating system provides a competitive edge and is significant for internationalisation.
Comatec also encourages its personnel to take up voluntary studies. For example, the personnel can seek language training or similar organised by an external party and receive support for it from Comatec.
“We also organise training provided by external service providers. The partners in these cases are parties providing suitable vocational training. Suitable training modules, for example, have been tailored for Comatec,” Anne says.
Training sessions intended for mechanical designers include Manufacturing Techniques for Designers and Steel Structures. The two-day training module intended for electrical and automation designers is called Safe Electrical Engineering”.
These days, employees need various certificates and cards, which are only valid for a certain period and have to be renewed from time to time. These include occupational safety cards, electrical work safety cards, hot work cards and first aid cards.
Comatec Group currently has several employees with FISE qualifications as designers in charge of steel structures. FISE verifies the certifications of designers and site managers, as well as other experts, based on the law and complementing statutes and instructions, and maintains a register of them.
Training sessions related to project competence include a training course intended for project managers, entitled Comatec PM Professional and a course for head designers, project engineers, designers and other project operatives, called Comatec Basics of Project Management. Project management training is implemented with a partner.
Comatec PM Professional training was first implemented in 2014. Ten people participated in the course, and some of them obtained an IPMA C certificate. Comatec PM Club is a continuation of earlier training schemes. Among other things, the objective is to share competencies, deal with project feedback, develop project activities and their associated practices, collect and share tacit knowledge, exchange experiences and discuss topical issues.
TEXT: TAINA SYRJÄNEN