Technical experience or personal skills- which is best?

If it’s being suggested that Chief Officers in the Fire & Rescue or Police Services could become responsible for both Services together, what does this mean for the importance of technical skills and specific work based experience?

Daily demonstration of skills
You demonstrate your technical ability every day as a firefighter and these skills are regularly tested, trained, drilled and updated. But candidates can be surprised that competence in this area doesn’t play more of a role in promotion decisions.

Proving your worth
The reason for this is that by proving your competence in your current role you are showing yourself to be a credible candidate for promotion to your line manager. And in most FRS, you need to get your line managers approval before you can go any further in the application process.

Fit for role is not the same as fit to manage at the next level
From there, assessment can seem to focus more heavily on personal competencies or the ‘PQAs’. This is because even a highly technically skilled and knowledgeable person may not necessarily be suited to managing others. They may not be able to resolve non-operational problems as effectively or communicate as clearly as they’d need to. They may have a manner which can get other people’s backs up, or just not be suited to assuming a leadership role. None of this reflects on their ability to do their existing job, it just casts doubts on how suitable they may be for the next level up.

Giving ops assessment its place
Some FRS do now include an operational assessment a part of their promotion assessment process. It will be taken into account in addition to assessment of personal abilities such as aptitude to lead effectively and manage organisational or strategic problems. This is a change from the previous National Process which assumed that a) these skills would have been adequately assessed on an ongoing basis and b) that technical proficiency at the next level would be addressed via the role development programme. In some, but not all, FRS this isn’t considered adequate; operational testing has therefore been re-introduced. This may be through exams such as the IFE or a practical, simulated testing scenario on station or at the training centre, or a mixture of both.

Assessing promotion readiness
At every level of promotion managers prove their operational worth in their existing role. They may not demonstrate this in a hands-on way on a daily basis depending on their job, but they will have an understanding of what is required and how to direct others to achieve this. So it’s not really a question of which is better, technical skills or personal competencies, as they both have their place. It is how each is measured that is the real question of interest for anyone ready to take their next career leap.