What are Competencies?
First devised in the 1980s, competencies were brought to prominence by Richard Boyatzis in his book, The Competent Manager: a model for effective performance.
Competencies may be described as an organisation's requirements of outcomes and expected standards of performance. Increasingly, organisations will set out these requirements in a framework that covers demonstrable and measurable behavioural and technical competencies.
Because they represent indicators of desired behaviours, it is inevitable there will be commonalities in the competencies of different organisations. A survey conducted by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development in the United Kingdom found that the most popular names found in employer competency frameworks are, in rank order:
- communication skills;
- people management;
- team skills;
- customer service skills;
- results orientation;
- problem solving.
What would a typical competency framework look like?
Typically, a competency framework would be a series of five to ten competencies, each with a name, a general descriptive overview and series of elements, often set out as bullet points that could be considered specific examples of behaviour of an effective employee.
How are competencies developed?
There are 'standard' sets of competencies available for some job roles, such as those devised for NVQs in the United Kingdom. However, it is usually better for companies to have competencies drawn up to suit their own organisation. While many will be similar and, typically, will fit with the popular headings listed by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (above) a business will fine tune its competency framework to reflect its situation: for example, an organisation undergoing rapid expansion by acquisition might want to focus more strongly on change management, diversity and branding, while a stable company that sees threats from increased competition or disintermediation due to new technology might want to focus more on developing innovative managers and strengthening client relationships.
Establishing a competency framework is an interactive process. Talent International Development Ltd will help client companies develop their own framework by visiting the worksite to carry out job analysis, gain an understanding of the culture and environment and work with focus groups and individual senior managers to look at typical and atypical workplace behaviours. Interviews will also focus on 'critical incidents' - key workplace events or crises that call for the highest levels of competency to resolve appropriately.
How do organisations use competencies?
Once a competency framework has been established and agreed, it can be applied to different aspects of work that depend on the assessment of performance or potential: for example, recruitment, appraisal, training and development needs analysis, career management and promotion potential. The overall aim of a competency framework is to increase individual and organisational effectiveness.
How are competencies used in development and assessment centres?
As participants on development or assessment centres go through exercises, observers watch and record their behaviour. Once an exercise is completed, the observers classify the behaviours into one of the competencies and evaluate (rate) the participant's behaviours against the desired competency level. Typically, this is done with reference to a rating guide for the exercise that sets out the behaviours under each competency that an effective participant would be expected to demonstrate in the exercise. These ratings and supporting evidence are then discussed in the integration session.
Integration (or wash-up) session - competency ratings
Shortly after the centre exercises are run (usually the same evening or the following day), the observers take part in an integration session in which they discuss each participant's performance against each competency in each exercise. The observers will agree on an overall rating in each competency for each participant, paying particular attention to the participants' strengths and performance gaps.
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