Competency-based Job Profiles: What Are They Good For? (Continued)

The Performance Management process can be broadly defined to include all those functions that support the communication of performance expectations to employees, setting individual performance plans consistent with these expectations, ongoing feedback and management of performance to support employees in meeting their performance goals and expectations, and end of cycle reviews to evaluate how well employees have performed over the year and to plan for the next performance cycle.

While the performance management process must support the business goals of the organization (i.e. translation of what the organization must accomplish into what each employee must accomplish), organizations typically use competencies to define how the organization expects employees to behave in the performance of their job duties (e.g. through teamwork; with integrity; oriented toward achieving results; with a focus on the client; etc.). Thus, organizations often include competencies in the planning, review and evaluation cycle to complement and enhance the feedback provided to employees on their personal performance.

Competency profiles must support reliable, valid, fair and unbiased recruitment and selection decisions. They provide the standards for assessing whether candidates have the potential or capabilities to perform successfully in the target role or career stream. As such, therefore, the competency profiles must reflect the true (bona fide) requirements for entry into job roles / positions in the organization and they must not unfairly discriminate against groups protected under Canadian Human Rights and Employment Equity legislation. They must be sufficiently comprehensive to support the development or selection of reliable, valid, fair and unbiased screening and selection tools and processes.

This post is based on content from 'Framework for Competency-based Management' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd

Competency-based Job Profiles: What Are They Good For? (Continued)

Succession planning and leadership development includes all of those HR processes needed to ensure that there is a pool of qualified candidates ready and able to assume key roles with the organization as they become vacant. Typical elements include: the forecasting of movement and position vacancies within the organization; the definition of the competency requirements for the various key roles and levels; the regular assessment of current employee competencies against the requirements and predicted vacancies; and, the planned movement (e.g. career assignments) and development of employees (e.g. formal development programs; mentoring; self-directed learning; etc.) to prepare them for future roles and levels within the organization. Succession planning differs from career management in the extent to which the activities are employee versus organizationally driven.

While the organization is responsible for providing the structures, tools and processes to support effective career management it is typically an employee-drive process – in other words, it is up to the employee with the assistance of his/her supervisor to take advantage of the structures, tools and processes the organization has in place to advance in his/her career. While all employees must take responsibility for planning and managing their personal careers, succession planning tends to be a more proactive organizationally driven program of activities on the assumption that having vacancies in key roles would leave the organization vulnerable.

This post is based on content from 'Framework for Competency-based Management' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd

Are Your Competencies Defensible?: More Key Questions to Consider

When considering whether your competencies are defensible, there are key questions you can ask:

Were the job / work content experts representative of the stakeholders who understand the work?In line with the need to have job / work content experts participating in the definition of the competency requirements, there is a need to ensure appropriate representation, especially when dealing with jobs, functions or work commonly performed across of the organization. This could be the case when there are many people performing one job, when a number of jobs contain common elements (e.g. management or supervisory responsibilities), or when identifying competencies that tend to be common or core to organizational areas or functions. Factors to consider in choosing expert participants include:

• who understands or typifies the job and desired level of performance;
• representation of different stakeholder interests; and,representation of the diversity of the role (geographically, functionally, culturally, size of operation, region vs. HQ)

Is the level of competence used as the standard in making the employment decision reflective of the level actually needed?

Organizations must consider very carefully the level of performance that the competency profile represents. Many providers of competency profiling services argue that because organizations are driven to excellence, the standard for the development of competency profiles should be the superior performer. Competencies that document superior performance may be appropriate as standards or targets for employees who are seeking to improve (e.g. training and development). However, competencies defined at this level may not be appropriate if used to support recruitment and staffing decisions, especially if it is recognized that employees need time, training and / or development after appointment to become ‘superior’ performers.

Organizations, therefore, need to consider carefully the level of competence that will be described in the competency profile relative to how the profile will be used within the organization (e.g. recruitment and selection; development once in the job; etc.). In some cases, organizations choose to set different standards depending on the competency application (e.g., one standard for entry into a job / role, another standard for fully effective performance once the employee has been oriented or trained for the job, and possibly a third standard that represents full mastery or excellence in the job / role).

This post is based on content from 'Are Your Competencies Defensible?' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.

Competency-Based Job Profiles: What Are They Good For?

Competency-based job profiles can be used to support career management, learning and development, succession planning, recruitment, and as the program evolves employee performance management as well as staffing. As such, therefore, the profiles must be constructed to support all of these end uses for the targeted employee groups.

By definition, career management calls for employees and / or the leadership of the organization to be able to compare employee competencies against those competency requirements for both current as well as other roles or jobs in the organization. Thus, the competency structure must allow the organization and employees to draw comparisons across jobs, roles or levels in the organization. For example, employees aspiring to advance within career streams must be able to compare the competencies and proficiency requirements across the more junior to senior levels of this stream. For those employees wishing to make a career transition, the competency structure must also allow employees to compare their current competencies with competency requirements outside the typical or traditional occupational career paths. The competency structure must allow all of this to occur easily and effectively.

Closely linked to the career development process, learning tools and programs must support not only the assessment of individual learning needs to perform in one’s current role, but also to advance in one’s career. The setting and execution of individual learning plans to address these needs, and the assessment of the extent to which learning goals were met, can support learning for current jobs/roles as well as career development for other roles to which the employee aspires. Also, the competency structure must support goals for continuous organizational improvement and ongoing knowledge management and enhancement consistent with the organization’s vision.

This post is based on content from 'Framework for Competency-based Management' by Human Resource Systems Group, Ltd.