Have you ever wondered why sometimes highly educated and intelligent people are not able to perform their job effectively? On the contrary, employees with average intelligence deliver exceptionally good results.
There could be several reasons for the lack of performance. One of the main reasons could be a lack of competencies. In other words, we can say that the person doesn’t have the required competencies to complete the job successfully and efficiently.
What is Competency
Competency is your ability to do something successfully and efficiently.
What is Competency Mapping
Competency Mapping is a concept which helps organizations to identify the right skill set to perform a job effectively and successfully. We know that no two organizations are the same and no two job roles are the same. Every job requires a different set of skills, knowledge, and behaviors.
Competency mapping is the process of identifying the specific skills, knowledge, abilities, and behaviours required to operate effectively in a specific job or organization.
Competency Mapping helps in matching people with jobs and this will lead to improved performance. Competency models play an important role in keeping people and organizations focused on the skills, knowledge, and characteristic that affect job performance.
It also helps to understand the most critical competencies which are required to be successful and the competencies which are easy to be developed through training and those that are more difficult to develop.
Classification of Competency
Generally, competencies are classified into two categories:
Functional
Behavioural
One more important category is:
Fundamental Competency: Fundamental competency is a competency which an organization expects every employee should possess. It is based on organizational culture and values.
However, it can be classified into more categories depending on the overall objective of developing a competency framework.
Benefits of Competency Mapping
Better Decision Making
Properly implemented competency models can help organizations to make better decisions.
Improves Productivity and Efficiency
Competency Mapping is a highly structured approach, which will improve the productivity and efficiency of the organization.
Better Work Environment
Competency Mapping helps to create a better work environment and brings more professionalism to the organization.
Right Direction
The competency framework helps to understand the competency and behavior indicators that are required to complete the tasks successfully and efficiently. This systematic and organized approach leads the organization in the right direction to build an efficient and productive organization.
Measurable
What get measured, gets managed. – Peter Drucker
Well-defined competencies can be measured. This enables organizations to take necessary steps to improve performance at individual and organizational levels.
Focused Development
The competency framework helps to understand the gaps between current competencies and desired competencies. Once critical competencies are identified, organizations can take the necessary steps to develop those competencies in their employees.
Continuous Improvement
Assessment of individuals, and Teams becomes better which in turn leads to the continuous improvement of the organization.
Better Alignment
Competency Mapping helps to allocate the right job to the right person based on his skills.
Competency-Based Culture
It helps to create a competency-based culture in the organization.
Better Internal Communication
It improves internal communication.
Components of Competency
- Skills:The ability to perform a certain physical or mental task.
- Knowledge:understanding a person has in a specific content area. Knowledge can refer to a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
- Personal attributes:inherent brought to the job.
- Behavior:The observable demonstration of all above attributed to excellent performance. It represents an attitude towards the team and colleagues. A positive behavior of an individual leads to higher performance and productivity. It can be defined as an employee’s reaction to a particular situation at the workplace.
Methods of Competency Mapping
- Assessment Centre
- Questionnaire
- Interview technique
- Critical Incidents Technique
- Psychometric test
Applications of Competency Mapping
Performance Management
With Competency Mapping your performance management will become better and more effective. Everything is predefined so employees know what the organization expects them to do and on what basis their performance is going to be measured.
The performance of an employee is directly linked to competency he or she has to perform the job effectively and successfully. A competency mapping helps in understanding desired proficiency for the job vs current proficiency to do the job. By analyzing any gaps, performance management can be more effectively conducted.
Recruitment
When competencies are clearly defined to complete a job or task effectively, recruitment becomes much easier, faster, effective, and scientific. Now you do not have to depend on guesswork or gut feeling.
The competency-based recruitment process will help you to select the most suitable candidate. This will also help you to reduce the cost of hiring, minimize employee turnover and improve job satisfaction.
Clearly defined competencies will help you to decide who to hire and who not to hire. It increases the chance of hiring people who will succeed. Hiring the wrong people will tremendously affect the productivity and profitability of an organization.
Better Internal Placements
Competency Mapping helps you to understand your employees in a better way. It also helps you to fill internal positions more effectively and efficiently. Employees who are talented and competent can be identified and promoted.
Talent Management
Competency mapping helps define the organization’s talent management framework because the competencies act as a common foundation. The surest way to develop talent in any organization is by developing the competencies of the workforce.
Job Evaluation
Job evaluation is all about analyzing the key skills required to do a job. It can help in allocating existing or new resources to the specific job based on the evaluation process.
We are living in a very competitive and dynamic world, where job roles and business requirements are changing continuously. So, it is very important to understand any changes in the business strategy of the organization and whether such changes in the business strategy need new competencies or old competencies need to be altered.
Training and Development
Competency Mapping helps you to create structured learning pathways to achieve desired competency levels. Identifying development needs becomes more focused and ROI on training will become better.
Any gaps in desired and current proficiency levels help in developing individual development plans and learning roadmaps for individuals and even job roles and categories.
Succession Planning
Competency Mapping plays a very important role in succession planning. The analysis of competencies required for a leadership role and mapping them with the competencies of the potential leaders will help you to identify and select the right leaders for succession planning.
Conclusion
Every organization should have well-defined roles and a list of competencies required to perform each role successfully and effectively. What differentiates a successful organization from an average organization is how effectively it developed and implemented a competency model.
Now organizations are realizing that the Competency mapping for every role in their organization is required to be successful in the competitive world. Looking for competence rather than focusing on intelligence will help an organization to select the right candidate which in turn helps them to succeed.
Competency mapping is the process of identifying the right set of competencies at the required proficiency levels for specific roles in an organization. Competency mapping is not complete till each and every role of the organization is mapped to the competency framework.
Competency Mapping is not only for HR people alone. But it can be applied in other fields also. To build a competent organization you have to build a competency-based organization. Competency Mapping is a continuous process. You have to continuously monitor, rectify and improve it. Successful implementation of competency-based models will tremendously affect the overall performance of the organization.