September 01, 2009
The process of identifying and describing competencies requires input from many parties: job holders, their managers, subject-matter experts, and specialists in HR and HRD.
The following 10 guidelines can help you identify and describe the competencies that are important to employees in your organization.
1. Focus on generic competencies. If you keep your competencies broad and generic (for example, oral communications) rather than specific and situational (counselling a problem employee), your list will get greater acceptance by more job holders. The performance criteria (outputs and behaviours) may differ from one group of employees to another, but the competency itself should be generic and universal. Attempting to generate lists of specific competencies for every position is an overwhelming task.
2. Avoid the Obvious. Some competencies should be taken for granted and not listed. Especially if they were conditions met by every entry-level employee. Examples: literacy skills at the high school graduate level and basic math ability.
3. Behaviour must be observable and measurable. Avoid statements like "must have an appreciation of the importance of our customers" or "requires an understanding of the profitability of our four major services." These statements don't tell us what to look for as evidence of the presence or absence of the competency.
4. Illustrate with behavioural examples. Pinpoint the behaviours that demonstrate what you mean by, say, appreciating the importance of customers: "Use customer's name. Listen attentively. Return customer's phone calls promptly. Thank customer for business. Learn something personal about customer. Tell customer you enjoy working with her or serving her."
5. Use familiar language. Some managerial competencies include items such as, "the use of socialized power and unilateral power," "perceptual objectivity," and "socio-emotional maturity." It's better to use simpler labels that are understandable to everyone.
6. Keep it short. Most competency studies produce lists of about a dozen competencies. Models may go to 20 or 30 competencies, but individuals will probably identify about a dozen that are genuinely relevant to their jobs. If more are selected, the list may contain specific skills and not just generic competencies.
7. Keep competencies mutually exclusive. Some competencies may look similar, but define them so that they do not overlap. Time management seems similar to planning and scheduling. But time management deals with the 80/20 rule - delegating, prioritizing, negotiating and self-discipline; planning and scheduling deals with Gantt charts, critical path method, PERT and so on.
8. Focus on future needs. HRD research often focuses on the knowledge, attitudes and skills needed to do jobs as they currently exist. However, competencies are used to assess and train people for tomorrow. For example, view sales managers as entrepreneurs and consultants who help customers make more money (rather than as bosses who help salespeople make more sales).
9. Work backward, from results to behaviour to competencies. Let's say five managers in a group cannot agree on an action to be taken. They request training on negotiation skills. Their competency consultant discovers that the managers had not agreed on ways to reach a decision. By constructing a decision matrix and getting the five to agree on values (weights) to be assigned to each variable, the consultant got agreement. In other words, the competency needed was decision-making, not negotiation skills.
10. Define levels of excellence. Once a competency has been defined, give illustrations of behaviours that are expected of a novice, an intermediate job holder with a few years of experience, and a seasoned professional performing at a high level. This is important if your list and definitions of competencies are to be used as a basis for HR decisions (recruitment, appraisals, wage and salary decisions, and training).
TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
Job descriptions, when accurate, complete, up-do-date, and well written are essential sources of competency information. There can be almost a one-to-one correspondence between the job description and the position model.