Competency Mapping

Competency Mapping What is competency? Any underlying characteristic required to perform a given task, activity, or role successfully can be considered as competency. Competency may take any form like knowledge, attitude, skill, motives, values or self concept. A very relevant definition of competency is: Competencies are the characteristics of a manager that lead to the demonstration of skills and abilities, which result in effective performance within an occupational area. Competency also embodies the capacity to transfer skills and abilities from one area to another.

1

Competency groups:  Technical or functional: dealing with the technology or know-how associated with the function, role and task  Managerial or organizational: dealing with managerial aspects, organizing, planning, mobilizing resources, monitoring and systems use  Human or behavioural: including competencies that are personal, interpersonal and team related  Conceptual or theoretical: including competencies like visualization and model building.

2

How Many Competencies Must We Have? Since each organization has its own distinctive style of business which it holds prime, it stands to reason that each organization should require different competencies for its people to be successful in that organization. Thus each organization must have its own set of specific competencies for its people and these may need to change from time to time as the organization evolves. However, over a period of time it has been seen that most of the generic competencies are frequently recurring competencies across organizations and businesses. Commonly Occurring Competencies in Organizations: • Intellectual:  Comprehension Analytical Ability

3

 Innovation  Decision Making  Planning and Organizing  Strategic perspective • Interpersonal

Dynamic

 Communication

Initiative

 Adaptability

Drive

 Interpersonal Skills

Resilience

 Ability to Influence Others

Stress Resistance

• Business Related  Business Understanding  Customer Focus

4

Competency mapping:  is the process of identification of the competencies required to perform successfully a given job or role or a set of tasks at a given point of time.  consists of breaking a given role or job into its constituent tasks or activities and identifying the competencies (technical, managerial, behavioural, conceptual knowledge, an attitude, skills, etc.) needed to perform the same successfully. On the other hand, competency assessment is the evaluation of the extent to which a given individual or a set of individuals possess these competencies required by a given role or set of roles or levels of roles. Assessment centres use multiple methods or multiple assessors to assess competencies of a given individual or a group of individuals. 5

Five Reasons Why Competency Mapping Is Essential for You….. • Companies need a clearly defined organizational structure to function effectively. • It is important to have well defined roles in terms of the KRAs or activities associated with each role. • It is useful for companies to map the competencies required foe each role. • Generic competencies should be identified for each set of roles or levels of management. • These should be used in recruitment, performance management, promotion and training.

6

COMPETENCY MAPPING METHODS:  Interviews: Questionnaire

 Group work: Job descriptions  Task forces: Appraisal formats  Task analysis workshop: KRAs and attributes Competency mapping at low cost  Pick up the job or a role that is relatively well understood by all individuals in the company. Work out for this role and give it as an illustration. For example, Sales Executive, Production Supervisor, Assistant HR Manager, receptionist, Transport Manager, PR Manager, etc. are known to all an easy to profile.  Work out competencies for this role if necessary with the help of job analysis specialist or an internal member who has 7

Knowledge of competency mapping. Prepare this as an illustration.  Circulate these others and ask various departments to do it on their own.  Circulate samples of competencies done by others.  Illustrate knowledge, attitudes, skills, values, etc.  Choose a sample that does not use jargon.  Explain the purpose.  Interview of past successful job holders helps.  Current incumbent who are doing a good job along with their reporting officers is a good enough team in most cases.  Once prepared even on the basis of one or two individuals inputs circulate to other role set members. 8

Nature of Competencies: Competencies form the basis of an individual’s consistent thinking & behaviour in a variety of situations. For clear understanding it would be helpful to define & clarify them as follows: (a). Motives: These are needs which are direct an indiv’s behaviour towards or away from a good & act as a driver. Affiliation, power, and achievement motivation directing an indiv’s behaviour can be cited as an example of motives. (b). Self-concept: This is a person’s attitude toward self/selfperception/self-image exhibited in the form of self-confidence or an inferiority complex. ©. Traits: These allude to the physical characteristics & enduring attributes of an individual leading to consistent response to stimulus/situations. 9

(d). Knowledge: This refers to the info. a person possesses about specific areas. Knowledge comprises many factors like memory, numerical ability, linguistic ability, and ability about spacial relations, among other things, and is, therefore, a complex competency. Through measurement of knowledge it can be predicted what a person can do rather than what he/she will do. (e). Skill: This is the application of an ability or ability to perform a specific mental or physical task, e.g., rational and logical thinking, analysis and synthesis, among others.

Classification of Competencies 4. Central and Surface Competencies: •

Competencies exist at both the surface as also at the core personality level. The surface level competencies of knowledge and skills are visible in one’s behaviour or performance and can be developed with appropriate training & development. 10

• The core motives and trait competencies reside deep within us and are difficult to understand, measure and develop. • Self-concept lies somewhere between surface and core competencies.. • The competencies lying deep within can be developed over a longer period of time by appropriate job placement of the employee which will offer him/her opportunities to develop these competencies for future senior roles. • One’s best performance is driven by core competencies rather than task-related skills and knowledge, which goes to show that selection on the basis of qualifications or skills alone will not ensure a candidate’s best performance.

11

2. Threshold and Differentiating Competencies •

Threshold competencies: The characteristics required by a job holder to perform a job effectively are called threshold competencies.

•

Differentiating competencies: The characteristics which differentiate superior performers from average performers come under this category; such characteristics are not found in average performers. Another way of classifying competencies on the basis of their importance for a job in an organization can be: primary (core), secondary and peripheral competencies. These can be quantified as the top 25 per cent level, middle 50 per cent level and the bottom 25 percent level of importance received by competencies for a position through the 360 degree feedback process. 12

How to Identify Competency The identification of competencies and the subsequent development of a competency model constitute a specialized task. If an organization is aware of its competency requirements for various level jobs, it can straightaway adopt the assessment centre approach. The following steps will be helpful in the identification of competencies : Step I: The first and foremost step in identifying a competency or a set of competencies is to clearly establish the performance criteria. It would be desirable to have a group of specialists who are in agreement on the criteria for judging superior performance for a job/role. Step II: After having the criteria, the next stage is to select samples of average performers and outstanding performers. The idea is to have two contrasting groups selected on the basis of the performance criteria. 13

If the size of the population is large, the sample size of the total population could be 10 per cent of the total population. If the population size is small, a higher percentage is desirable. The sample size should be reasonably large to allow the statistical treatment of data. Step III: The third step is to collect data about the nature of competencies which could be done through surveys, expert panels and behavioral event interviews(BEI). Although the survey method is a quick method of data collection, it misses out hidden competencies that may be unique to the job as the data are based on the questions asked. Expert panels or focus groups comprise line managers, HR specialists, customers and outstanding job holders. The panel or focus group usually arrives at the competencies required to do a job in an outstanding way through brainstorming. The limitation of this method is that the panel usually does not arrive at a full range of competencies and its accuracy level is 50 per cent as compared to

The best way to identify a competence /competencies is through a behavioural event interview(BEI), which is a form of structured interview focused on the individual and his competencies rather than on the task.Through this method data is collected on sample behaviour leading to success in a role or behaviour during events of frustration when a person failed to achieve what he wanted. The use of BEI requires expertise which focuses on thoughts, feelings, behaviour and outcomes to identify the patterns of intentional behaviour leading to star performance. A comparison of two extreme groups – star performers and average performers – throws up the data on how the two groups differ on performance criteria in a particular job/role in a particular organization. Step IV: Data collection is followed by analysis for building a competency model. The analysis involves a thematic analysis of the interview content and a statistical analysis of of the differences between the average performers and star performers. 15

The analysis may finally be presented in the form of a competency dictionary with behaviour descriptions as per the requirement of an organization. Step V: The competency model developed through the steps mentioned above can be validated by administering the questionnaires to a large number of job holders comprising average and star performers. Where the number of job holders is small, the data gathered for selection or appraisal can be utilised for validation or updating of the model. Competency modelling can not be one-time affair as competency requirements change in consonance with a change in requirements on jobs. Even the motivational aspects and resultant behaviour may change with time. The competency model has considerable value and can be utilised for various purposes like selection, performance appraisal, succession planning, training & human resource development where the selector can identify differentiator competencies among av. & star performers. 16