Competence Development and HR in an SME Context

Sammanfattning: There are over 1.1 million small- or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Sweden. But even if they have a significant impact on both the country’s economy as well as creating a majority of all Swedish jobs, the current research within competence development has in large, overlooked SMEs. The purpose of this study is therefore to fill that gap by investigating current practices and facilitation of competence development (CD) in Swedish SMEs, with or without a designated HR function. The empirical part of this study was collected by conducting semi-structured interviews online with twelve participants from twelve different Swedish SMEs. The interviewees were either founders, CEOs, HR professionals or a mix of these in their respective companies. The companies were from seven different industries: beauty, consultancy, education, health care, industrial production, real estate, and tech. The results reveal that more competence development is being conducted in SMEs than current research suggests, regardless of a designated HR function or not. All companies interviewed facilitated CD in some way. Even if CD was not facilitated in the same way in all companies, the views and responsibilities of CD were similar within the same industry. Few of the interviewed companies had any plans to grow and/ or get a designated HR function. The research conducted in this thesis draws conclusions that show not all companies believe that a designated HR function is necessary to conduct CD. In all SMEs interviewed, CD was prioritised and perceived as important.