A critical aspect of constructing a Competency System is whether you have someone on site who can champion for the cause. If your company is smaller in size, and you have an HR professional who understands the rudiments of competency construction, you may be able to create the system yourself with a bit of help from friends. There are several good websites that offer pre-made competencies to use. The good part of these systems is that they are very quick to implement and your performance management process is generally housed in a single database on the site you choose. The downside is that the provider has your data and you may be forced to enter a lot of information about your company and your employees. If you can live with the approach and the content they provide, this may be your best plan of action. Some of these sites also enable you to input your own descriptors, and give you a good deal of flexibility in accessing developmental resources and ready-made tools to support the process. Some providers even have seminars where people can take classes in competency system development for a fairly inexpensive cost.
If your organization is larger and more complex, then you really should be thinking about conducting a study process in order to identify the factors that differentiate high performance in your organization. The best decisions are based on objective and valid information.
Avoid putting people in a room and working with a facilitator who asks you what means success. Your chances of drafting an effective model are significantly reduced with this methodology and you will probably spend a lot of money for the consultant. One size does not fit all where Competency Systems are concerned, particularly within the larger organization. You’ll need a system that aligns to your culture.
ECI uses a multi-staged process for gathering the information upon which to build competency systems. The process includes behavioral assessment, using a valid and reliable instrument, job analysis in the field, an employee survey, leadership interviews and sometimes customer feedback. By correlating this data base of responses to actual performance on the job, statistically valid factors are identified upon which to construct the content of the system. Visit the ECI website for more information about this process and to download our Competency White Paper.
We also recommend that you put together a task force made up of people at a high enough level in the organization to make decisions around process and content. This aspect also enables you to gain some buy-in at the grass roots level and to enhance uptake, once the system is designed. Most assuredly, you’ll need a consultant to work with your task force so that you keep the team focused on getting the work completed and implemented. Don’t offer this assignment to your interns, however, since you need people who have experience in managing others and in making decisions at upper levels.
Having good up-to-date job descriptions can be a real benefit when you are constructing a Competency System for a lot of reasons. First, you can use these documents to identify common behaviors that people have to demonstrate to be successful in your company. Also, the technical aspects of the role can be described in the job description, thereby reducing complexity in your models.
Leader support is essential for the success of your Competency System. We have worked with companies whose sales leaders have said….”Frankly, I don’t care how they bring in the business. As far as I am concerned, if they close it and achieve their goals, I really am not going to lower their performance rating based on some competency system.” If this is a fair representation of your organization, then you have some work to do before you even begin to build your system. Otherwise, you are wasting time and resources to build a system that will find itself a binder on the shelf.
In cases where leadership support is lacking, determine what problems are being encountered in the marketplace and with your teams that would be addressed through the implementation of a Competency System. You may need to champion for the cause for awhile before you actually begin to build the system in order to gain that essential leadership support. If leaders are not willing to participate at a basic level and do not see the value in the system, your chances of success are seriously reduced.
Budget is something you can work around. If you have a very large organization, you may need to put together an HR team to lay out a plan and then approach the process over a period of 2 or more years. Begin by building the models and getting people to use them for selection or for developmental purposes. Then add on another talent management process, such as performance reviews. Continue to add new processes year by year until the whole Talent Management process has been developed and is cohesively working together on the foundation of your Competency System.
If you have a small organization, then your most cost effective strategy would be to learn more about competencies and know what type system you wish to build. Next, collect some information from your employees through surveys and through conducting job analysis. Look for trends in the information you gathered upon which to construct your models. Last, put together the task force (including one or more of those leaders we talked about) to develop the tools you will use to install the system. This way, you gain some buy-in from people and a basic understanding of how the system can work.
There are as many good competency systems in use as there are bad. Some basic principles of devising good Competency Systems are:
- Involve people in providing input on what means success in your organization. You make better decisions on the basis of facts.
- Match your system to the preferred style of your organization – simple or detailed, depending upon what people seem to prefer. Notice, I did not say “complex.”
- Make sure your system is simple enough to be easily understood by users. Avoid having 20 or 30 dimensions with multiple descriptors. Better to have 5-7 per job family, and incorporate the key factors beneath the dimensions.
- Gain leader support before you begin. If you fail to gain the support of leaders, the system will fail.
- Make sure all parts of your Competency System tools are linked to the common base of dimensions and definitions.
- Have good job descriptions. These can help to support your system and give you many more design options.
If you would like more information about ECI’s competency systems, please give us a call at (908) 806-3444 or click here to visit our website. We’d be happy to offer a recommended strategy to help you build your system.
Filed under: Competencies, Organizational Development, Talent Management | Tagged: competency dimensions, competency systems, organizational study, Talent Management Systems
