COMPETENCY PROFILING: AN IMPORTANT HUMAN RESOURCES TOOL

For any organisation to be successful and differentiate itself from competitors, it is important to have the right people in the right positions. Thus, to effectively function within its environment and achieve its business strategy, the organisation needs to leverage its core capabilities. This is only possible if the organisations’ human resources have been correctly deployed in value adding jobs or positions and are equipped with the relevant competencies. The complementary processes of job and competency profiling are important tools for assisting the organisation in getting the right skills to the right places.

Job and competency profiling enable the identification of performance standards and success criteria for particular jobs or roles within an organisation. These performance standards and success criteria form an important basis for decision-making within a number of HR Development and general HR processes.

THE IMPORTANCE OF COMPETENCY PROFILING

Competency profiling is the process by which an organisation identifies the set of behaviour patterns an incumbent needs to bring to a position in order to perform his/her tasks and functions competently. Otherwise put, the Competency Profile for a particular job is the description of the most important competencies required by individuals that would assist them in performing the main duties and responsibilities listed in the Job Description for that position. Competencies may refer to the skills, knowledge, attitudes, underlying characteristics of a person and the elements that ensure a best fit to the organisation.

Identifying competencies for specific positions ensures that employees know what behaviours they must exhibit for effective performance in that position and it assists the organisation in aligning the behaviours and skills of employees to the organisational strategy and business environment.

Competency profiles for jobs or roles drive a variety of other HR activities such as:

• The identification of training needs
• The development of personal development plans
• Job design
• The identification of required competencies
• Recruitment and selection – assessment of competence
• Assessment and development centres
• Performance evaluation
• Career planning and development
• Job evaluation and compensation

If competency profile information is not available or inaccurate, HR processes may be performed in isolation, which could negatively influence the impact and contribution to organisational success.

DEVELOPING A COMPETENCY MODEL

Through the process of competency profiling, each position in an organisation can be described in terms of the key competencies required to perform the work, which forms the competency model for the specific position. A competency model serves as the conceptual framework for a number of people management practices. The purpose of such a model includes:

• Creating a common focus and approach to people management practices.
• Enabling a holistic approach to people management, as there is a focus on core competencies throughout all processes.
• Linking all the people management functions back to the development of competence within the organisation and allowing for the prioritisation of development activities.
• Making provision for the execution of people management functions at both a strategic and tactical (transactional) level.

BIT’S APPROACH TO COMPETENCY PROFILING

During competency profiling projects BIT works with management and job incumbents to identify the core competencies for jobs or job families. Job content and competency data is collected during work sessions attended by incumbents and their managers. During these sessions a combination of techniques are applied depending on the nature and level of the jobs. These techniques could include reviewing existing job profiles, interviews with incumbents and managers and observation to verify job content. All data is verified with relevant supervisors, managers and/or other relevant stakeholders and adapted if required. The verified data is utilised in the compilation of the competency profiles.

Once the competency profiles have been developed, sessions are conducted with relevant staff to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the competencies and the development of in-house expertise for the day-to-day maintenance of the competency profiles.

BIT takes the competency profiling process a step further by developing assessment batteries aimed at the evaluation of the identified core competencies. The types of assessment techniques incorporated in BIT assessment batteries include, among others, work simulations and role-plays, in-basket exercises, structured competency-based interviews and psychometric tests and questionnaires.