Employees - their skills and present attitudes still more and more are shown as the source of the strategic advantage and the key to market successes for organizations. Managing competence is becoming a tool with which companies are trying to use this resource. In the article different sources of building the strategic advantage of the organization are discussed with special stress put on the role of human resources. In the second part of the study, conditions and principles of exploiting competence of employees as bases of building strategic advantage are discussed.