Management needs a checkpoint to determine if performance meets organizational requirements, given the knowledge and skills set of the employees. This is the birth of competency analysis.
Identifying competency models for your organization
Each company has several job groups and, inherently, levels of jobs within those groups. For instance, for the job group “accounting,” you are likely to have levels beginning at Staff and ending at Vice President. Other job groups may be for marketing, engineering, human resources, and so on. Identifying job groups and levels lays the foundation for profiling competency requirements of the various functional units within your company.
Having competency models that are anchored on company strategy and objectives enables you to identify the competencies required to accomplish such strategy. To do this, review each job group in relation to company objectives and identify the competencies that support the corporate objectives. The set of required competencies and the corresponding levels will change as you examine the many jobs that you have in the organization. Rather than pulling rotten apples out of the basket, developing competency-based HR activities presents a more positive approach to addressing mediocre performance. Having identified the competencies that are required for a job, the next step is to create a scorecard of performance that should dictate the range of acceptable levels of proficiency of the employees.
Determine what differentiates a typical performer from an outstanding performer for each competency, preferably from within the same functional unit to address the peculiarity of the required competency as it applies to the individual job function. By understanding how outstanding performers demonstrate the competency versus typical performers, you can define the competency in such a way that it describes top performance.
Using tools in managing performance
Once all of your models have been completed and validated (usually by engaging line managers/people to participate in workshops and specialized feedback forms), you can develop a tool to assess the workforce to determine what the most urgent training and development needs are for your company.
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