Lots of organisations today use competencies to underpin
their HR initiatives - talent management, recruitment and
selection, training and development. But it is so easy to
get it all wrong just by doing any of the following.
1. 'Sell' competencies as an HR initiative.
They might not sound strategic to the non HR person, but
competency models have the potential to deliver millions in
extra revenue and output - don't underestimate or undersell
them. Line managers love competency models as they provide
a language to describe performance, give feedback and
target coaching. Getting buy in from line managers and
involving them in the development of the competencies will
ensure successful implementation later on.
2. Ignore the application.
Before researching and developing your competency model,
you should identify how you intend to use them - otherwise
you risk leaving an investment tool sitting on the shelf.
Including them in recruitment and selection will initially
only impact new employees, performance appraisal will
impact across the organisation but might require some years
to rollout.
3. Develop competencies based on the status quo.
Outstanding performers in complex jobs such as leadership
roles, can deliver twice as much output as average
performers. Developing a competency model based on what
your outstanding performers do/say/think will raise the
overall performance of your business. However, if you want
to encourage or reward existing performance levels in your
organisation then workshop the behaviours and values
everyone in the organisation already has in spades and
restate these in a shiny new model.
4. Define competencies which are 'nice to have' or
aspirational.
To deliver value, competencies must be defined with a job
of work in mind. Including competencies which have no
relevance to a particular role or function means behaviours
are encouraged or rewarded which do not add more or greater
output. This can also lead to lack of role clarity and
confusion. When competency modelling, define the work and
performance measures of a job as a first step to ensure the
competencies are grounded in reality.
5. Spend hours word crafting to get the perfect end result.
No competency model will be word perfect each and every
time. Phrases such as 'Customer Service' or 'People
Leadership' will mean different things to different people.
Managing people's expectations about how many drafts and
redrafts the model will go through is an important aspect
to getting buy in. Spending hours or even days word
crafting a competency model is not time well spent.
Spending time on how we might measure and coach for better
'Customer Service' is, however, a better use of time and
resource.
6. Use them for downsizing and for inspiring great
performance This is a serious point.
Competencies used in any downsizing or redundancy exercise
should have a limited shelf life. They need to be thrown
out or significantly repackaged if you want to use them
again.
So do all of the above and you can rest assured that you
have underoptimised your greatest HR tool.
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Pam Kennett is Founder and Director of Chiswick Consulting
Limited a management consultancy which provides advice and
direction to clients in marketing and human resources. Pam
has been a management consultant for more than 15 years.
Contact her at pam@chiswickconsulting.com or visit
http://www.chiswickconsulting.com/competencies.shtml .
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