As the evolution of the labor market accelerates, companies have a key role in the employability of their workforce. It is in this sense that the Gestion Prévisionnelle des Emplois et des Compétences (GPEC), better known under the acronym GPEC, was born.
Today, the PPIM brings a new approach to the challenges of skills management. This approach is more global and closer to the reality on the ground. This is known as Job and Career Management.
How do you make the transition from GPEC to EPPM? We take stock.
Let's go back to 2005. In order to deal with a context of social insecurity, the Borloo law made it compulsory for companies with more than 300 employees to set up a GPEC plan. The Ministry of Labour gives the following definition: the objective of GPEC is to enable organisations to find a balance between, on the one hand, skills, jobs and staff and, on the other hand, the strategic requirements linked to changes in the economic, technological, social and legal environment.
To sum up, the GPEC approach aims above all to link the skills of employees with the company's vision. While this method allows the company to remain competitive, there are certain limitations. Indeed, employee retention is a crucial issue, particularly in a context of talent war in which organisations do not hesitate to poach employees from their competitors. A vision centred on the needs of the company is therefore no longer sufficient to involve employees.
Moreover, the GPEC vision focuses on "hard skills", i.e. technical competences, and neglects "soft skills" and transversal competences. Yet the labour market as it is today tends to put this range of varied skills on an equal footing.
With this in mind, the GPEC is giving way to the GEPP, which is intended to be more in line with reality.
However, the PPIM is not fundamentally different from its big sister. It is more a modernised vision, which takes into account the digital transformation of the labour market.
Indeed, the PPIM vision is based on the desire for a 'career path' for employees, and not only on the company's strategy. For example, vocational training is replaced by continuous training in order to guarantee a good level of employability. However, PPIM is not synonymous with a rapid rise in skills. The idea is not to train all employees at all costs, but rather to allow those who wish to do so to be supported in their development project.
Companies also have much to gain. Indeed, the implementation of a PPIM plan enables the organisations concerned to better anticipate the evolution of their professions, but also to remain competitive thanks to theimprovement of career management.
The PPIM is an evolution of the GPEC vision. But what does it mean in practice when it comes to implementing such a plan within a company?
Implementing a PPIM plan in your company is not something that happens overnight. Two concepts are important here: observe and measure.
The first action to be taken in the context of managing jobs and career paths is to establish the current situation. This involves identifying developments specific to the company's sector of activity. To do this, it is interesting to refer to the strategic guidelines provided by the professional branch, which is responsible for constantly monitoring developments and trends.
Once these developments have been identified, it is time to carry out an internal assessment of the company. The aim is toassess the state of resources in order to draw up an action plan. To do this, it is possible to delve into various documents, such as the minutes of professional interviews, social balance sheets or the personnel register.
This initial quantitative data is useful for setting the company's strategic objectives for PPIM. The next step is to match these objectives with the current competences of the employees.
Mapping the skills of teams at a given moment is not always an easy task. It is possible to refer to tools such as the multi-skill matrix. This step makes it possible to highlight the company's weaknesses in terms of human resource allocation.
Then it's time for the analysis. Once all the relevant information has been collected, managers and human resources officers can determine the company's needs in terms of skills and training to meet the strategic objectives previously set.
The gap between the analysis and the objectives can be closed by increasing the skills of certain employees.
In order to maintain a balance between the skills of the workforce, the company's objectives and the employees' career plans, regular monitoring is necessary.
Indeed, the PPIM is an approach which requires a great deal of rigour and a qualitative investment of time. This raises the problem already known in the GPEC era: it is difficult to have an exact vision of the skills within the company. For this reason, it is interesting to digitalise this process by using a tool dedicated to monitoring skills. The advantages are numerous, for example:
Unlike the GPEC, the GEPP takes into account the professional project of employees. Implementing such an approach requires meticulous organization: first, establish an assessment and define objectives. Then, map and measure the skills available internally. To increase efficiency, it is interesting to digitalize the PPIM with a dedicated tool such as Mercateam.
The implementation of a PPIM plan also plays an important role in retaining employees by offering them skills upgrades in line with both their career plans and the company's strategy.
