Feeling Lost in Competency Mapping? Seeking Guidance for Assessment and Development in HR

Dear Sir/Madam,
I am working as a Management Trainee, in the HR Department, of a private manufacturing concern set up in Central India. The organization is a 48 years old and primarily deals with manufacturing steel castings, equipments and machinery parts for heavy machine industries including Steel Plants, Power Plants, Railways, Mining and Exports. However the organization fits into the Medium-Scale industry frame. It has a fairly good International presence and recognizable pioneering National presence. Its employee strength is 1400.

I am a 2008, MBA (HR) pass out; and in my internship I did “Competency Mapping” for a practice in a very well known software company based at Bangalore. The scope of my project was ‘Concurrent Cross Validation', since the Mother Company has been implementing ‘Competency Mapping' which it generated on its own a few years back. So my job was to check whether the generalized competencies as understood and implemented by Mother Company in all its divisions stands valid when performed individually on a particular division. For the purpose I was given a role profile, and I conducted a Repertory Grid. The final outcome was in agreement with that generated by the Mother Company; and that ended my project.

Now at this organization where I have recently joined as an MT, seeing my internship project; they have thought about implementing the full “Competency Mapping, Assessment and Development” programme. However it has never been implemented before and it shall be in experimental stages. Since I am well acquainted with the ‘Repertory Grid' technique, I plan to implement it here as well; along with ‘Expert Panel' technique. Also since I am aware I do not hold the competency to carry out ‘Observation' technique and ‘Behavioural Event Interview' or ‘BEI' technique; due to lack of experience, exposure, and no prior training. And the high costs involved in the process.

The Mapping procedure I understand it pretty well, however am kind of lost when it comes to Assessment and Development. I have been reading books and material from the Internet, which explains how I shall go ahead about it. Yet am confused and feel a little directionless. I am not being able to understand what a Competency Model is, and how to develop it. What factors should I keep in mind before starting Assessment? Do I just focus on the managerial/executive division or do I execute it on the workers of that division too? How shall I define the whole of job role for the department/division I chose? Which departments do I chose, and whether it be just any one as per my choice; or some department/division mission-critical for the organization?

I do understand that Competency Mapping is in its infant stages in India, though many organizations are reconsidering and aligning themselves to the benefits of CM. The costs involved and the time consumption in implementing it just for one department can be pretty overwhelming to the organization; which leads to failure of the process. Thus a proper direction and an outline of what should be done, how it should be done, and being ready with all pros and cons; is the need of the hour.

I request for some help, direction and guidance from the HR people who are aware of ‘Competency Mapping, Assessment and Development', and who have implemented in their respective organizations.

Thanking you
Akanksha

Hi Akanksha,

I am currently working on a project on competency mapping and assessment. Could you please tell me how you implemented it in your company? I would also appreciate it if you could share your student project. Additionally, I would be grateful if you could shed some light on concurrent cross-validation using repertory grid, as well as the BEI and Expert Panel Techniques.

If you could email me your contact number at amita210@gmail.com, I would be able to call you if needed.

I am looking forward to your assistance.

Amita

"Repertory Grid" – George Alexander Kelly was born in (1905-1967) Kansas, U.S.A. With the coming of World War II, Kelly entered the Navy as an aviation psychologist and was placed in charge of the program of training for local civilian pilots. Later, he went to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy in Washington and remained in the Aviation Psychology Branch until 1945. In that year, he was appointed Associate Professor at the University of Maryland and in the following year a Professor and Director of Clinical Psychology at the Ohio State University.

In 1955, the two-volume work, "The Psychology of Personal Constructs," (PCT) was published and gained immediate recognition as a unique and major development in the study of personality. In 1965, he moved to Brandeis University where he was appointed to the Riklis Chair of Behavioral Science. Even today, no reading in personality theory is complete without the theory of personal constructs developed by Kelly.

The key points of PCT to remember are:

- Perceptions influence expectations, and expectations influence perceptions.
- The medium through which this happens is known as the construct system.
- Construct systems are unique to the individual and develop throughout life.

Repertory Grid will help to draw out and make explicit the expertise that every manager has, and help lay out their problems in such a way that solutions may become more obvious. It allows the interviewer to get a mental map of how the interviewee views the world, and to write this map with the minimum of observer bias. Kelly’s practice is then not to have this map 'interpreted' by an expert, who judges where the problems and stresses are; rather Kelly’s approach is to discuss the map with the interviewee, to talk about things that perhaps the interviewee had not faced about himself before, to discuss with the interviewee the survival value of that particular map as a means of navigating around his or her life-space.

The theory of personal construct is being used in multiple applications and understanding it requires substantial reading. How it can be used in competency mapping is explained below from the experience of a famous software company in Bangalore. "In repertory grid technique, respondents were asked to think of the top ten performers and ten poor performers they have witnessed in a role. They were then asked to give behaviors that differentiate the best from the worst. These behaviors were used to create appropriate constructs for arriving at successful behaviors."

In the repertory grid process, the respondents will identify a set of superior performers and another group of ineffective performers. They, to justify their identification of people, will identify a set of variables:

- Knowledge
- Skill
- Attitude
- Ethic
- Self-Concept
- Appearance, etc

which are associated with superior and average performers.

It is difficult to suggest which method is more useful or more accurate. Some methods are easy to use but the quality of data may be inadequate. Some others may yield superior quality data but are expensive and time-consuming. Certain methods and tools are such that they cannot be used in all cases. Some jobs may require the use of more than one method or tool for their mapping.

[Naik G P & Rahman S U (2005), Competency Mapping Assessment and Development, Institute of HRD, Bangalore]

Concurrent Cross Validation: The researcher can collect data on a second set of sample subjects and have it scored to see if behaviors isolated in the first study about superior and average performers match with the behaviors identified in the second study. This is called Concurrent cross-validation.

@Amita,

While implementing Repertory Grid, please take care in first educating the employees on what exactly you are doing, what the technique is looking for, and what the expected results are. Since this is a technique where people may jump to conclusions and feel that by naming individuals, they will be under scrutiny. They may also be concerned about facing consequences or receiving unfavorable appraisals. (I have had such an experience!)

So, you need to make it very clear that you are looking for the underlying behavior of superior performers, and NOT targeting specific individuals.

The inclusion of names is simply to help you identify people and group the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA's) received for each person.

I apologize for not having my student project report. My system crashed, and I lost data last December. Additionally, my company has not yet implemented the Competency Mapping procedure. This is a first-time experience for them as well. We are currently relying on internet and book resources, though we have shifted our approach and will not be implementing any specific techniques now. It will be more of a research-oriented process.

Thank you.

Hi Akanksha,

An article discussing the processes involved in an intervention designed to assess the current organizational culture and what might be required to develop competency maps suited to the future development of an organization is available at [link removed] and may be useful. It addresses the issue raised by Akanksha concerning the focus on what constitutes superior/inferior performance rather than the people.

Thank you.

Dear Akanksha,

I am Haritha, currently pursuing an MBA. I am working on a project about competency mapping for a department in an automobile company. To be honest, I had no prior knowledge about this topic when I began this project. I am reaching out to you for help as I find myself in a similar situation as you. I have gathered information about the company, mapped out the process flow, created process flow charts, and department structure charts. I have also outlined the employee job descriptions, some provided by company personnel and some based on my observations.

However, I am now facing a challenge with the assessment phase. I am struggling to identify the competencies required. I have only managed to identify skills and competencies based on the job descriptions. I am unsure how to proceed in determining the core and supporting competencies and analyzing employees. As a student, time is of the essence, and I am running out of it. My project deadline is the end of this month. Could you please provide some guidance on simple and effective ways to move forward with my project?

Thank you for your assistance.

Warm regards,

Haritha