03-09-2014, 10:04 AM
Competency Mapping
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Executive Summary
In today’s competitive world it is becoming very important to build on the competitive activities
of the business, particularly regarding what competencies a business needs to have in order to
compete in a specific environment. Top management is identifying corporate core competencies
and working to establish them throughout the organization. Human Resource Development
builds competency based models that drive business results
Competency modeling addresses the development of people from process design through
succession. But most of the organizations of all sizes are still struggling with defining, designing
and implementing competency model projects.
The process is completely customizable. The decisions of competency design are driven by
number of organizational factors, including management philosophy, customer requirements,
business needs and in-place processes. These factors vary from one organization to another,
requiring a customized approach to competencies in the workplace. Customization is essential to
the overall success of competency efforts, since every organization must integrate competency
concepts into its own job design, recruitment, hiring orientation, development and succession
processes.
The report details the
Introduction
Today organizations are all talking in terms of competence. Gone are the days when people used
to talk in terms of skill sets, which would make their organizations competitive. There has been a
shift in the focus of the organizations. Now they believe in excelling and not competing. It is
better to build a core competency that will see them through crisis. And what other way than to
develop the people, for human resource is the most valuable resource any organization has.
Organizations of the future will have to rely more on their competent employees than any other
resource. It is a major factor that determines the success of an organization. Competencies are
the inner tools for motivating employees, directing systems and processes and guiding the
business towards common goals that allow the organizations to increase its value. Competencies
provide a common language and method that can integrate all the major HR functions and
services like Recruitment, Training, performance management, Remuneration, Performance
appraisal, Career and succession planning and integrated Human resource management system.
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,
Competency – Broad Categories
The competencies in the companies can be broadly defined into the following categories based
on the skill set required. The competencies are divided based on the necessity of the skill for the
employees.
Historical Perspective
The Roots of Competency Approach
Michael Crosier shocked the management community by defining the organization as imperfect
social compromises .Far from being scientific constructs he depicted a complex organization as a
reflection of its actual degree of competency.
Despite a growing interest of competency among mangers and human resource professionals in
recent years, the modern competency movement in industrial-organizational psychology actually
dates from the mid1950’s and early 1970’s.
In that regard, John Flanagan’s work (1954) and Dave McClelland’s studies (1970) might be
cited as two landmark efforts that originally invented the concept of competency. Concept maps
were invented by Joseph Novak in the 1960s for use as a teaching tool. Later in 1986 William
Trochim developed the concept map into a strategic planning tool for use in the design of
organizational components. Trochim's technique differs significantly from Novak's original
school of thought. While Novak's maps are generated for an individual, Trochim's are generated
by a group.
John Flanagan (1954)
A seminal article published by John Flanagan in 1954 established Critical Incidents Technique as
a precursor to the key methodology used in rigorous competency studies. Based on studies of US
Air Force pilot performance, Flanagan concluded that “the principle objective of job analysis
procedures should be the determination of critical requirements. These requirements include
those which have been demonstrated to have made the difference between success and failure in
carrying out an important part of the job assigned in a significant number of instances”. From
here, critical incidents technique was originally discovered.
Richard Boyatzis
Richard Boyatzis wrote the first empirically-based and fully-researched book on competency
model developments. It was with Boyatzis that job competency came to widely understood to
mean an underlying characteristic of a person that leads or causes superior or effective
performance. Boyatzis was explicit in describing the importance of clearly-defined competency
as reflected in specific behavior and clearly defined performance outcomes when he wrote that
“the important points is that specific actions cause, or lead to, the specified results. Certain
characteristics or abilities of the person enable him or her to demonstrate the appropriate specific
actions”.
As founding developer of competency modeling in the United States, Boyatzis grounded
competency interventions on documented behavioral indicators that caused or influenced
effective job performance. Boyatzis, like Flanagan, stressed the importance of systematic
analysis in collecting and analyzing examples of the actual performance of individuals doing the
work. The method for documenting the actual performance was collected through the behavioral
event interview (BEI), an intensive face-to-face interview that involves soliciting critical
incidents from performers and documenting what the performers thinking and doing during the
incidents
Competency Mapping
Meaning and Concept of Competency Mapping
Competency Mapping is a process of identification of the competencies required to perform
successfully a give job or role or a set tasks at a given point of time. It consists of breaking a
given role or job into its constituent’s task or activities and identifying the competencies
(Technical, managerial, Behavioral, conceptual knowledge and Attitude and skills etc) needed to
perform the same successfully.
Competency Model
The roots of competency modeling date as far back as the early 1900’s but these models have
become widely popular these days. A competency model is an organizing framework that lists
the competencies required for effective performance in a specific job, job family (e.g., group of
related jobs), organization, function, or process. Individual competencies are organized into
competency models to enable people in an organization or profession to understand, discuss, and
apply the competencies to workforce performance.
The competencies in a model may be organized in a variety of formats. No one approach is
inherently best; organizational needs will determine the optimal framework. A common
approach is to identify several competencies that are essential for all employees and then identify
several additional categories of competencies that apply only to specific subgroups. Some
competency models are organized according to the type of competency, such as leadership,
personal effectiveness, or technical capacity. Other models may employ a framework based on
job level, with a basic set of competencies for a given job family and additional competencies
added cumulatively for each higher job level within the job family
Conclusion
Competency is a set of knowledge, skills and attitudes required to perform a job effectively and
efficiently. A Competency is something that describes how a job might be done, excellently; a
Competence only describes what has to be done, not how. So the Competences might describe
the duties of a Sales Manager for example, such as manage the sales office and its staff, prepare
quotations and sales order processing, manage Key Accounts and supervise and motivate the
field sales force