To be hired in the PA from now on, just “knowing” will no longer be enough, “knowing how to do”, that is technical skills, and “knowing how to be”, that is behavioral skills, will also count. This is the turning point contained in the ministerial decree issued by the Minister for Public Administration, Renato Brunetta, and by the Minister of Economy and Finance, Daniele Franco, which updates the guidelines for identifying new professional needs by public administrations .
Soft skills
The employee will no longer be asked to simply possess theoretical notions, but also the ability to apply them to concrete cases and to maintain a certain conduct. In the selection procedures, aspects such as the ability to innovate administrative procedures, work as a team and make decisions independently will be considered. “Soft skills” which will therefore be evaluated in the next competitions, as well as having greater weight in training and career paths.
The need for new skills
The definition of the new professional profiles will make it possible to overcome, in the intentions of the government, the automatism in turnover: the new hires will not in fact consist in the replacement of old figures with identical ones, but will look at the new skills that must support the transformation of the PA envisaged by the Pnrr. A process that will therefore result in a progressive reduction of generic administrative figures in favor, for example, of digital experts, e-procurement, green transition, project management.
Overcoming the “mansionism”
Among the objectives of the executive there is also that of overcoming the “taskism”, understood as the attribution to the staff of rigidly defined and standardized tasks, seen as a limit to administrative action. Just as we aim at overcoming the concept of “professional profile”, updating it to the notion of professional family, which lends itself to gathering a plurality of role or competence profiles based on the complexity of the organization.
The professional family
The professional family, explains Palazzo Vidoni, is the area in which employees have common skills or knowledge. For example, in relation to the area of officials of the new Central Functions Contract signed on May 9, 2022, a ministry could identify the family of “legal officers” and, within it, decline various roles, for example related to the law of environment or trade union law.