As a Human Resources executive, you already know how important a technical competency model can be to your organization. For those who are in the process of developing a technical competency model, and already have an existing centralized talent management system, this article will give you some great tips to help when implementing your model.
What can an effective technical competency model do for you?
Technical competency models have become an important part of organizational leadership. This type of framework can do many things for an organization such as the following:
- Provide specific skills and experience of what is required in order to be successful within a particular job;
- Find the right person for the job;
- Facilitate better employee performance;
- Set clear requirements for performance management;
- Identify which employees can be promoted and recognized; and,
- Improve the organization’s bottom line.
Best practices
It is essential to be able to successfully designed, developed and implemented a technical competency model. Some of the most important elements are that these models are at the center of a successful Human Resources Department. These elements include being able to understand the specific knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA’s) that are most needed in a specific position. Recruiting should be looked at as a type of art form and people outside the Human Resources field don’t understand the importance of this.
Here are some tips to help with the integration of a competency model with your overall talent management system:
- Analyze the different HR processes to see which ones need improvement such as recruiting, performance reviews or disciplinary procedures.
- It is helpful for the company to consider implementing a main competency model and then adding on to that.
- Take the time to set the criteria for the model based on what the organization needs. Don’t forget to consider the overall strategy of the entire company as well as identifying the key positions. All of the other positions should be built around this.
- Once all of the jobs are identified, it is essential to define the measures of performance for each job.
- Use the model to create a compensation to structure the different pay differences between the each individual job and employee (based on skills, education, experience, etc.)
- Think about who the key users will be and build the model around that.
- Decide how much data collection needs to be done in order to have a successful model. It is critical to know what you want in a clear plan in order to achieve success.
Technical competency modeling is an innovative way to improve strategic management decisions.
Case studies
Planning and implanting technical competency models has sharply increased over the past few years. Organizations all across the nation are seeing that it has become a necessary part of strategic planning. One such company is Devereux Cleo Wallace, a health care organization located in Colorado. Turnover became so bad that it had a rate of 60 percent. The Human Resources Department had been doing an excellent job of recruiting and hiring some of the best candidates who had the right experience and education for the job; however, that wasn’t enough. The company designed and implemented a competency-based candidate selection process and the turnover rate quickly fell between 15 percent and 20 percent. This is an excellent example of how important this process is for any organization, and competency-based interviewing is one of the most frequently used interview styles used in companies all across the U.S.
There are many Fortune 500 companies who are designing and implementing these policies with excellent results. Some of these companies include AT&T, PepsiCo, General Electric, KPMG and American Express, just to name a few. In fact, AT&T had a major transformation recently in its HR Department. When the company had to go through many hard transitions in the late ‘90s, they lost many employees and had a very high turnover. After much analysis, the company found that they were able to make positive changes that ended up having a great change. They also found that they were able to locate the right candidates by looking for those who are good with people and are also competitive and high performing.
Taking the next step
A recent study by Towers Watson revealed that competency models are vital to an organization’s culture, and this particular competency framework assists with attracting the top candidates and retaining the talent who has already been hired. Once the appropriate analysis has been made for your organization, it will give you a better idea of what would work best. Designing and implementing a competency model for any organization will bring about a positive change that will in turn help the overall strategic planning.
References:
https://www.lexonis.com/resources/practical%20questions%20building%20models.pdf
https://rbl.net/s3/?rblip/Articles/Competency%20Models%20with%20Impact.pdf
http://blogs.wayne.edu/ioadventures/files/2013/12/Doing-Competencies-Well-Best-Practices.pdf
http://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/editorialcontent/2015/0315/pages/0315-competencies-hiring.aspx
http://www.cambriaconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/whitepapers/5624-leadership-competencies.pdf
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/09670730210792115?journalCode=hrmid
http://www.talentquest.com/corpsite/4-ways-an-lms-optimizes-talent-management