Over the past 10 years, human resource and organizational development professionals have generated a lot of interest in the notion of competencies as a key element and measure of human performance. Competencies are becoming a frequently-used and written-about vehicle for organizational applications such as:
- Defining the factors for success in jobs (i.e., work) and work roles within the organization
- Assessing the current performance and future development needs of persons holding jobs and roles
- Mapping succession possibilities for employees within the organization
- Assigning compensation grades and levels to particular jobs and roles
- Selecting applicants for open positions, using competency-based interviewing techniques
Competencies include the collection of success factors necessary for achieving important results in a specific job or work role in a particular organization. Success factors are combinations of knowledge, skills, and attributes (historically called "KSA's") that are described in terms of specific behaviors and are demonstrated by superior performers in those jobs or work roles. Attributes include personal characteristics, traits, motives, values, or ways of thinking that impact an individual's behavior.
Origin of Management including Competency Mapping:
Chanakya's Arthashastra, an ancient Indian script/book on Political Science and Administration, written some 3000 years ago. Other names of Chanakya were Mr. Kautilya and Mr. Vishnu Gupta. Constitutions of all the major countries have origin in this book. It could be Indian Constitution, Irish, Canadian, USA, Australian, etc., and even British unwritten constitutions have roots imbibed in this book. It is the towering book in which you find the basics and applications of Management Sciences, Chemistry, Physics, Military and War techniques, Basic Engineering and Technologies, Ethics, Legal and Judiciary, and Fiduciary system, Values, Psychology, and Anthropology, Organization Behavior, Human Resource Management. In fact, major basics of all Marketing Management, Human Resource Management, basics of Management Models, are been directly lifted with some modification from this book. Great efforts of Chanakya by all means; and one of the greatest contributions to the world. You may call Arthashastra as a Classical book once if you read, you will find other subjects easy any time in your life.
If Geeta, Bible, Quran, Gurugranthsahib, Adi Granth, Vedas, Vedanta are classical scripts in spirituality then Arthashastra is one of the classical books for the above-mentioned subjects. In fact, all the classical scripts have everything put in gist to live a normal life happily. It is said that once you master classical books everything becomes easier in the later part of life and work.
Competence is a standardized requirement for an individual to properly perform a specific job. It encompasses a combination of knowledge, skills, and behavior utilized to improve performance. More generally, competence is the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified, having the ability to perform a specific role.
For instance, management competency includes the traits of systems thinking and emotional intelligence and skills in influence and negotiation. A person possesses a competence as long as the skills, abilities, and knowledge that constitute that competence are a part of them, enabling the person to perform effective action within a certain workplace environment. Therefore, one might not lose knowledge, a skill, or an ability, but still lose a competence if what is needed to do a job well changes.
The competencies have five characteristics, namely:
- Motives: Things a person consistently thinks about or wants that cause action, motives drive, direct, and select behavior towards certain actions. For example, achievement motivation people consistently set challenging goals for themselves, take responsibility for accomplishing them and use the feedback to do better.
- Traits: Physical characteristics and consistent responses to situations. Good eyesight is a physical trait of a pilot. Emotional Self-Control and initiative are more complex consistent responses to situations.
- Self-Concept: A person's attitude value or self-image. A person's values are reactive or respondent motives that predict what a person would do in the short run. Example: A person who values being a leader would be more likely to exhibit leadership behavior.
- Knowledge (Information a person has in a specific work area) Example: An accountant's knowledge of various accounting procedures.
- Skill (is the ability to perform certain mental or physical tasks) Example: Mental competency includes analytical thinking. The ability to establish cause and effect relationships.
The four general competences are:
- Meaning Competence: Identifying with the purpose of the organization or community and acting from the preferred future in accordance with the values of the organization or community.
- Relation Competence: Creating and nurturing connections to the stakeholders of the primary tasks.
- Learning Competence: Creating and looking for situations that make it possible to experiment with the set of solutions that make it possible to solve the primary tasks and reflect on the experience.
- Change Competence: Acting in new ways when it will promote the purpose of the organization or community and make the preferred future come to life.
Types of competencies:
1. Organizational competencies - unique factors that make an organization competitive
2. Job/Role competencies - things an individual must demonstrate to be effective in a job, role, function, task, or duty, an organizational level, or in the entire organization.
3. Personal competencies - aspects of an individual that imply a level of skill, achievement, or output
Types of competencies:
MANAGERIAL
Competencies which are considered essential for staff with managerial or supervisory responsibility in any service or program area, including directors and senior posts.
Some managerial competencies could be more relevant for specific occupations; however, they are applied horizontally across the Organization, i.e., analysis and decision-making, team leadership, change management, etc.
GENERIC
Competencies which are considered essential for all staff, regardless of their function or level, i.e., communication, program execution, processing tools, linguistic, etc.
TECHNICAL/FUNCTIONAL
Specific competencies which are considered essential to perform any job in the Organization within a defined technical or functional area of work, i.e., environmental management, industrial process sectors, investment management, finance and administration, human resource management, etc.
Levels of Competency
1. Practical competency - An employee's demonstrated ability to perform a set of tasks.
2. Foundational competence - An employee's demonstrated understanding of what and why he/she is doing.
3. Reflexive competence - An employee's ability to integrate actions with the understanding of the action so that he/she learns from those actions and adapts to the changes as and when they are required.
4. Applied competence - An employee's demonstrated ability to perform a set of tasks with understanding and reflexivity.
Application levels of a competency:
ADVANCED
Demonstrates a high level of understanding of the particular competency to perform fully and independently related tasks. Frequently demonstrates application that indicates a profound level of expertise. Can perform adviser or trainer roles. Work activities are carried out consistently with high-quality standards.
PROFICIENT
Demonstrates a sound level of understanding of the particular competency to adequately perform related tasks, practically without guidance. Work activities are performed effectively within quality standards.
KNOWLEDGEABLE
Demonstrates a sufficient understanding of the particular competency to be used in the workplace but requires guidance. Tasks or work activities are generally carried out under direction.
COMPETENCY MAPPING
Competency mapping is a process through which one assesses and determines one's strengths as an individual worker and in some cases, as part of an organization. It generally examines two areas: emotional intelligence or emotional quotient (EQ), and strengths of the individual in areas like team structure, leadership, and decision-making. Large organizations frequently employ some form of competency mapping to understand how to most effectively employ the competencies of strengths of workers. They may also use competency mapping to analyze the combination of strengths in different workers to produce the most effective teams and the highest quality work.
The steps involved in competency mapping with an end result of job evaluation include the following:
1) Conduct a job analysis by asking incumbents to complete a position information questionnaire (PIQ). This can be provided for incumbents to complete, or you can conduct one-on-one interviews using the PIQ as a guide. The primary goal is to gather from incumbents what they feel are the key behaviors necessary to perform their respective jobs.
2) Using the results of the job analysis, you are ready to develop a competency-based job description. A sample of a competency-based job description generated from the PIQ may be analyzed. This can be developed after carefully analyzing the input from the represented group of incumbents and converting it to standard competencies.
3) With a competency-based job description, you are on your way to begin mapping the competencies throughout your human resources processes. The competencies of the respective job description become your factors for assessment on the performance evaluation. Using competencies will help guide you to perform more objective evaluations based on displayed or not displayed behaviors.
4) Taking the competency mapping one step further, you can use the results of your evaluation to identify in what competencies individuals need additional development or training. This will help you focus your training needs on the goals of the position and company and help your employees develop toward the ultimate success of the organization.
Behavioral event interview
A behavioral interview is a structured interview that is used to collect information about past behavior. Because past performance is a predictor of future behavior, a behavioral interview attempts to uncover your past performance by asking open-ended questions. Each question helps the interviewer learn about your past performance in a key skill area that is critical to success in the position for which you are interviewing. The interview will be conducted face-to-face whenever possible.
Using the STAR Technique
In a behavioral interview, the interviewer will ask questions about your past experiences. A useful way to prepare for this style of questioning is to use the STAR technique. The STAR technique is a way to frame the answers to each question in an organized manner that will give the interviewer the most information about your past experience. As you prepare to answer each question, consider