Practical Questions In Building Competency Models
RESEARCH NotesPracticalQuestionsin BuildingCompetencyModelsBy Dr. Richard S. Mansfield
Table of ContentsIntroduction.3The First Competency Model.3The Evolution of Competency Modeling.4How Are Competency Models Built Today?.7Resource Panels. 7Critical Event Interviews. 8Generic Competency Dictionaries. 9Other Sources of Data.10Key Questions for HR Professionals Building Competency Models. 121. What HR application should we include in the initial model building project?. 122. What will the key users of the model need from it?.143. How should key stakeholders be involved?.174. How extensive should the data collection be?.175. How should we balance research with intuitive approaches?. 196. What format of behavioral descriptors will best suit the application?. 237. How do we plan to accommodate additional, future competency models?. 29Concluding Thoughts. 32Suggested Additional Readings. 33 2005, Workitect, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be altered,reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Workitect, Inc.page www.workitect.com
Practical Questions in BuildingCompetency ModelsIntroductionCompetency modeling, an approachoriginated 30 years ago, has become amainstream practice in human resourcemanagement. Over that period, themethodology has evolved, partly inresponse to changes in organizationsand the workplace, and partly inresponse to the needs of people using thecompetency models to address specificneeds in organizations. I will begin witha brief discussion of the original creativeinsights from the development of the firstcompetency model, because some of theseinsights are still relevant today. Next, I willdescribe how changes in organizationsand the world of work have affected thepractice of competency modeling. Inthe rest of the paper, I will draw on myown experience in competency modelingover the past 20 years, to discuss sevenpractical questions for human resourceprofessionals and others who are planningto develop competency models in theirorganizations.The First CompetencyModelThe first competency model wasdeveloped in the early 1970’s by theeminent psychologist David McClellandand others at a fledgling consulting firmcalled McBer and Company1. The U.S.Department of State was concerned about the selection of junior Foreign ServiceInformation Officers, young diplomatswho represent the United States in variouscountries. The traditional selection criteria,tests of academic aptitude and knowledge,did not predict effectiveness as a foreignservice officer and were screening out toomany minority candidates.When asked to develop alternativemethods of selection, McClelland and hiscolleagues decided that they needed tofind out what characteristics differentiated1 McClelland provides a description of the study in his introductionto Competence at Work, by Lyle M. Spencer, Jr. and Signe M.Spencer. New York: Wiley, 1993.www.workitect.comoutstanding performance in the position.They first identified contrasting samplesof outstanding performers and averageperformers, by using nominations andratings from bosses, peers, and clients.Next, the research team developed amethod called the Behavioral EventInterview, in which interviewees wereasked to provide detailed accounts, inshort story form, of how they approachedseveral critical work situations, bothsuccessful and unsuccessful. Theinterviewer used a non-leading probingstrategy to find out what the intervieweedid, said, and thought at key points withineach situation. To analyze the data fromthe interviews, the researchers developeda sophisticated method of content analysis,to identify themes differentiating theoutstanding performers from the averageperformers. The themes were organizedinto a small set of “competencies,” whichthe researchers hypothesized were thedeterminants of superior performance inthe job. The competencies included nonobvious ones such as “Speed in LearningPolitical Networks”; the outstandingofficers were able to quickly figure outwho could influence key people and whateach person’s political interests were.The Evolution ofCompetency ModelingFrom this initial study, the McBerteam developed a methodology thatdominated the practice of competencymodel building for the next 10-15 years.Key insights from the initial study arestill highly useful in competency modelbuilding today: the focus on outstandingperformers, use of behavioral eventinterviews, and thematic analysis ofinterview data, and distillation of theresults into a small set of competenciesdescribed in behaviorally specific terms.The method differed from traditionaljob analysis in several ways. Job analysisfocused on understanding tasks andthe skills needed to perform each task;competency modeling, however, focused 2005, Workitect, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be altered,reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Workitect, Inc.page
on personal characteristics neededfor success in a broader job role. Andwhile job analysis focused on effectiveperformance, competency modelingfocused on outstanding performance.Practitioners of job analysis attachedcredibility to the views of job holders andother subject matter experts about what isimportant for effectiveness. Competencymodelers believed that only outstandingperformers could provide insightsabout what is important, but that evenoutstanding performers could not alwaysarticulate the secrets of their success.Finally, while job analysis often led tolong lists of tasks and their associatedskill requirements, competency modelersdistilled the results of their studies into arelatively small set of underlying personalcharacteristics.It is interesting to speculate aboutwhy competency modeling took holdand became widespread. The interestvalue of competency models may beone reason. Personal characteristics aremore interesting than tasks, and insightsabout outstanding performance are moreinteresting than those about effectiveperformance. Another reason for thesuccess of competency models is thatthey work well as unifying frameworksfor a variety of applications in humanresource management. A manageableset of personal characteristics can serveas a conceptual framework for selection,assessment, professional development,performance management, and otherhuman resource programs. Finally,competency models work well as vehiclesfor driving organizational change. In myown work, I have developed models thatinclude competencies with names suchas “Promoting Innovation,” “AcceleratingChange,” and “Valuing All People.” 2005, Workitect, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be altered,reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Workitect, Inc.page The first ten years of competencymodeling were dominated by consultantstrained in the McBer approach.This approach involved a rigorousresearch methodology, which includedidentification of criterion samplesof superior and average performers,behavioral event interviews, thematicanalysis of transcripts of half the interviewsample, and cross validation throughcoding and statistical analysis of the otherhalf of the interviews. During this period,competency models were most oftenused to guide selection and professionaldevelopment.Today, 30 years after the firstcompetency model, more than half ofthe Fortune 500 companies are usingcompetency modeling. Consultantsworking in the McBer tradition arestill building many models, but theseconsultants have been joined by manyother consultants using differentmethodologies. With market pressuresto build models more quickly and lessexpensively, there is less emphasis onmethodological rigor.Over the last decade and especiallyin the last five years, organizations havebegun to use competency models innew ways. Many organizations that haveredesigned their work processes andrestructured their jobs have developedcompetency models for newly designedjobs for which there are few, if any, jobincumbents with experience. Thesenew competency models, of necessity,describe emerging and anticipated skillrequirements, rather than skills thathave been effective in the past. Manyorganizations have taken a “one size fitsall” approach to competency modeling,by developing one competency model,usually for leaders, and applying thismodel to a large set of jobs, sometimeseven non-managerial ones. Otherorganizations have moved in the oppositedirection, by simultaneously developingmultiple competency models for differentjobs within an organization.Competency models are still mostoften used to support selection andprofessional development, but a newwww.workitect.com
type of developmental assessment – “360feedback,” competency assessment byself, manager, peers, direct reports, andcustomers – has become a new humanresources application in its own right.In the past ten years there have alsobeen changes in the workplace which affectcompetency model building. Becauseorganizations are changing more rapidly,the “shelf life” of a competency model hasdiminished. Frequent reorganizationschange job roles and make existing jobdescriptions and competency modelsobsolete. Competency models are oftenneeded for new and critical jobs, eventhough there are few employees withexperience in these jobs and fewer stillwho could be considered outstandingperformers.Staff functions, such as humanresources, have become leaner, so that theremaining staff have more responsibilitiesand job pressures and less time fordiscretionary,additionalactivitiessuch as investing time in competencymodel building. Thus, more of themodel building work falls to externalconsultants. At the same time, humanresources staff are under more pressure toproduce results quickly, and this meansimplementing a useful human resourcesapplication, not simply developing acompetency model. The budget for thedevelopment of a new competency modelmust therefore compete with the budgetfor its applications.Organizational changes have alsoaffected employees, who are the “end users”of competency models. The increasedintensity and pace of work make it moredifficult to get employees to participatein model building activities, especiallyresource panels and focus groups. Perhapsbecause of the pace of work, employees’attention span, their tolerance forcomplexity, and their willingness to readhave diminished. As a result, competencymodels need to be leaner and simpler,www.workitect.comwith high-impact language that holds thereader’s attention.How Are CompetencyModels Built Today?Consultants and HR professionalshave developed a variety of approaches tomodel building, but some common patternsare evident. There are three widely usedsources of data for competency models:(1) resource panels or focus groups withsubject matter experts, (2) critical eventinterviews with superior performers, and(3) generic competency dictionaries.Resource PanelsResource panels may include jobincumbents, people who manage jobincumbents, and others, such as humanresources and training staff, who haveworked closely with job incumbents.A resource panel usually follows astructured process, to get participants tothink systematically about the job and thepersonal skills and other characteristicsneeded for effectiveness. The facilitatorposes a series of standard questions(e.g., about the main responsibilities andtasks, formal and informal performancemeasures, most challenging types ofsituations encountered, and personalcharacteristics required for effectiveness)and captures respondents’ ideas on aflip chart. A key section of the panel,sometimes called a “future scan,” involvesasking participants about emergingchanges in the organization, industry,marketplace, and technology, and theimplications of these changes for the jobunder consideration. I usually close myown resource panels with an exercise inwhich participants review a set of genericcompetencies and rate their importancein light of the preceding discussion.Besides providing a forum for inputabout the job, a resource panel is anorganizational intervention that allowsformal input from different organizationalconstituencies. If it reconvenes after adraft model has been prepared, the panel 2005, Workitect, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be altered,reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Workitect, Inc.page
can help guide decisions about the finalcontent or structure of the model.Sometimes, instead of holding a singleresource panel, several are held, withdifferent sets of stakeholders. For example,in the development of a leadership modelfor upper middle managers, we heldfour focus groups: one each with jobincumbents, senior managers, directreports of job incumbents, and HR staff.Another common variation is to useinterviews with senior managers to do afuture scan.Critical Event InterviewsCritical event interviews withsuperior performers provide the secondmain source of data used in buildingcompetency models. Some researchersuse behavioral event interviews muchlike those developed in the early years ofcompetency modeling. Behavioral eventinterviews involve in-depth probingof a small number of broad events orexperiences. Conducting these interviewsrequires mastering a sophisticatedprobing strategy. Other researchers havedeveloped different types of critical eventinterviews, which usually involve morelimited probing of a larger number ofevents and experiences. 2005, Workitect, Inc.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be altered,reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any formor by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Workitect, Inc.page If critical event interviews are used,they are almost always tape recorded andtranscribed, so that a consultant can readand analyze information from them. Usingthese interviews significantly increasesthe time and cost required to develop amodel. Suppose, for example, that anorganization decides to include interviewswith 12 superior performers. Interviewsare usually one to two hours in length, anda consultant can conduct as many as threeinterviews per day. Individual readingand analysis of an interview takes abouthalf a day. After the individual analysis,the analysis team usually meets for one totwo days to integrate the interview data.Thus, including the 12 interviews in theprocess could add 12 consulting days tothe model building project.But these interviews have uniquevalue; they can provide highly detailedexamples of how specific competenciesare actually demonstrated by jobincumbents. Because of their value, theinterviews are usually included in modelbuilding projects focused on a single,critical job. But when an organizationwants to develop multiple competencymodels for a number of jobs, the time andcost of including the interviews are oftenprohibitive.Generic CompetencyDictionariesSome consultants and HR professionalswith extensive experience in competencymodeling have developed genericcompetency dictionaries: conceptualframeworks of commonly encounteredcompetencies and behavioral indicators.These generic competency dictionariestypically have 20 to 40 competencies,each with 5 to 15 behavioral indicators.A generic competency dictionaryhas several uses in model building.First, it provides a common conceptualframework or starting point for the modelbuilding team. The framework is usefulin categorizing initial ideas about jobrequirements, and the model buildingteam can feel free to modify or add to theframework. Second, the framework canbe used in a resource panel by askingparticipants to rate the importance of aset of generic competencies selected forrelevance to the job.Third, the framework can be usedto guide the analysis of critical eventinterviews. In some of my own consultingprojects, for example, I have trainedproject team members to use a genericcompetency framework to note andrecord in a spreadsheet each instance ofeach generic competency. The analystuses a spreadsheet form to record theinterviewee’s initials, the page numberwww.workitect.com
from the transcript, a paraphrase of thesignificant behavior, and the names andnumbers of relevant generic competenciesand behavioral indicators. When wecombine the data from each analyst’sspreadsheet, we create a database that wecan sort in multiple ways. For example,we can quickly print out a list of allinstances of a generic competency and itsindividual behavioral indicators. We canalso tabulate the number of instances ofeach element of the generic dictionary.The final model is not limited to conceptsfrom the generic competency dictionary.We may conceptualize a competencyby drawing from more than one of thegeneric competencies; and sometimes weidentify new competencies unrelated toany of the existing generic ones.Generic competency dictionariesare essential when developing multiplecompetency models within the sameorganization, to ensure that common skillsand characteristics are always describedwith the same competency names. Theorganization reviews and revises a set ofgeneric competencies, which then serveas building blocks for the constructionof the individual competency models.Whenever a competency is used, it hasthe same general definition, but thebehavioral descriptors can vary from onejob to the next.Other Sources of DataAlthough most competency modelsrely on some combination of the threedata sources just described – resourcepanels, critical event interviews, andgeneric competency dictionaries – othersources are sometimes used. For example,some researchers use surveys with all jobincumbents to validate a competencymodel. But there is some question whetherthe views of all job incumbents representan appropriate basis for validation. Thehistory of competency research shows thatsuperior performers often demonstrateskills and characteristics that are not evenunderstood or appreciated by the majoritywww.workitect.comof people in a job.For certain jobs, such as telephonecustomerservicerepresentatives,it is possible to observe or recordjob incumbents in action. For mostprofessional and managerial jobs,observation is impractical, becausecritical behaviors are unlikely to occurduring a limited observation period, andbecause the presence of the observer mayinfluence the behavior of the individualsbeing observed.For jobs with external customers,such as some sales and customers
such as investing time in competency model building. Thus, more of the model building work falls to external consultants. At the same time, human resources staff are under more pressure to produce results quickly, and this means implementing a useful human resources application, not simply developing a competency model.
UNESCO EDUCATION SECTOR 5 Systems thinking competency Anticipatory competency Normative competency Strategic competency Collaboration competency Critical thinking Self-awareness competency Integrated problem-solving competency Promotion of key competencies for sustainability ESD enables all individuals to contribute to achieving the SDGs by equipping them
1 Introduction 1 1.1 Background of the Study 1 1.1.1 Definition and meaning of Competency 2 1.1.2 History and Evolution of Competencies 8 1.1.3 Competencies for Sales Staff 12 1.1.4 The Sales Competency Model 19 1.1.5 ASTD Competency Model 20 1.1.6 Competency Mapping 24 1.1.7 Model of Competency Mapping 27
1. The Competency Catalog serves as immediate reference and guide of HRMD to support the following activities: a) Recruitment and Selection Development of Competency-based assessment tools Development of Competency-based Job Descriptions b) Development of Competency-based Performance Management System by building a fair
Core Competency Area 5: Observation and Assessment 43 Core Competency Area 6: Diversity and Dual Language Learners 47 Core Competency Area 7: Family and Community Relationships 50 Core Competency Area 8: Health, Safety, and Nutrition 54 Core Competency Area 9: Professionalism and Ethics 59
Competency Model, the Supervisory Competency Model, and now the General Employee Competency Model. Each of the competency models were developed specifically for public sector employees, and outline the specific skills and behaviors required for success on the job for the group of employees for which each model was developed. The finalized .
2.1 Competency Dictionary; in which competencies are described according to a specific competency model. The Competency dictionary is established according to the following format: Competency clusters: Represent a group of competencies that are naturally linked with one another as well as specific areas in HR.
COMPONENTS OF NURSING COMPETENCY In order to make nursing competency measurable, since it is a holistic and integrated concept, many research-ers seek to identify its main components. Matsutani et al.8 analyzed the definitions, attributes, elements and structure of nursing competency by reviewing articles in English about nursing competency.
tulang dan untuk menilai efektivitas hasil pengobatan. Hasil pemeriksaan osteocalcin cukup akurat dan stabil dalam menilai proses pembentukan tulang. Metode pemeriksaan osteocalcin adalah enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Nilai normalnya adalah: 10,1 9,4 ng/ml.8 Setelah disintesis, OC dilepaskan ke sirkulasi dan memiliki waktu paruh pendek hanya 5 menit setelah itu dibersihkan oleh .
