Em períodos de crise, a necessidade de se gerenciar as competências-chave das organizações é fundamental para consolidar sua vantagem competitiva. Priorizar processos, funções e competências críticas para o negócio contribui para aumentar a prontidão do capital humano, e, assim, viabilizar o alcance das estratégias corporativas. A partir de um estudo de caso numa corporação transnacional de petróleo e gás natural, foi proposto um modelo de gestão de competências que prioriza a identificação, mapeamento e desenvolvimento de competências estratégicas. Os resultados obtidos evidenciam que a adoção do modelo de gestão estratégica de competências proposto possibilitam mensurar e desenvolver a prontidão estratégica do capital humano.Palavras-chave: Gestão estratégica de recursos humanos. Prontidão estratégica do capital humano. Gestão estratégica de competências. Vantagem competitiva. Gestão de ativos intangíveis.Aligning the individual competences and the essencial organizacional competences: a case study in a energy companyAbstract: The contemporary scenario of competitiveness worldwide, characterized by the proliferation of new technologies and the globalization of the world economy, intensifies the need for continuous change in organizations to respond to this increasing demand, through restructuring and optimizing the technology advances and management techniques, in order to promote innovation, continuous improvement and costs reduction. Specially in periods of crisis, the need to manage the key competencies of organizations is crucial to consolidate their competitive advantage and his market position. Prioritize critical processes, functions and competences that are differential to the business contributes to increase the readiness of human capital, defined as the knowledge stock available to allow the achievement of organization strategies. In this changing context, the theoretical perspective of resource-based organization demonstrates to be suitable, because recognizes that the human resources of the company can provide a sustainable competitive advantage as it adds value, are scarce, difficult to imitate and substitute. In the contemporary global workforce market, the appreciation of the knowledge worker is a global reality, and specifically in the energy segment, target of this article, the shortage of these skilled workers in this segment reinforces the need to strategically manage the key competencies of the business. Despite the slight increase in the knowledge-base of these companies for their current investment in attracting human capital in the workforce market, this knowledge tends to be lost, due largely to the retirement of its employees. Moreover, this situation demands time, investment and effort, in order to transfer and train new employees who will assume strategic positions in that organizations. Hence, the aging of the workforce of these organizations is critical to accelerate the process of creating, capturing and sharing knowledge and competences associated with key processes of the organization. Thus, the strategic management of competences is imperative in this organizations, which demand continuous construction and reconstruction of their core competencies to maintain their competitive advantage. The constant alignment between the organizational core competencies and individual capabilites is a pressing need to ensure "strategic readiness" of human capital, understood as existing capacity of people to run the organization's strategies. This article is a synthesis of a research that applied the methodology of case study conducted in a transnational corporation in the segment of oil and gas. Based on the academic literature about competence management models, it was built a theoretical competence model that was compared with the competence management models applied in different areas of a large brazilian energy corporation, in order to validate the components of a strategic management model that allows to measure competence and to develop the strategic readiness of human capital. As a conclusion of this research, it was elaborated a strategic model of competence management that prioritizes the identification, mapping and development of competencies critical to business instead of covering thoroughly all the processes, functions and, consequently, all the competences of organization. The result of the work indicates that the adoption of the competence model proposed in research enables the organization to measure and to develop the readiness of human capital of the organization.Keywords: Gestão estratégica de recursos humanos. Prontidão estratégica do capital humano. Gestão estratégica de competências. Vantagem competitiva. Gestão de ativos intangíveis.