Competency Management: A Practitioner's Guide

Competency

Management

- A Practitioner's Guide

R. Palan Ph.D.

In cooperation with

Rosetta Solutions, Inc.

www.rosettasolutions.com

Produced by

RosettaMachine

www.rosettamachine.com

Copyright © R. Palaniappan 2003

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by:

Specialist Management Resources Sdn Bhd (Co. no. 385604-V) 14-4

Jalan Bangsar Utama 1,

Bangsar Utama, 59000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tel: 603-2282 8313 Fax: 603-2282 9313

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.smrhrd.com

Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia Cataloguing - in - Publication Data: R. Palaniappan (R. Palan Ph.D.)

Competency Management - A Practitioner's Guide

Print Edition ISBN No: 983-41398-0-2

Ebook editions produced by

Rosetta Solutions, Inc.

www.rosettasolutions.com

Ebook conversion and distribution powered by

www.RosettaMachine.com

Adobe PDF Edition ISBN: 983-42586-0-7

Microsoft LIT Edition ISBN: 983-42586-1-5

Mobipocket PRC Edition ISBN: 983-42586-3-1

Palm PDB Edition ISBN: 983-42586-2-3

Editorial team

Consultant:              Dr. Nat

Language:               Renu Joseph

Layout / Graphics: Agnes Peter

Printed in Malaysia by:

Percetakan Suma

1 Batu 6, Gombak,

53100, Kuala Lumpur

First:            Published:July 2003

Reprint:        September 2003

Dedicated to

Dr Nat, a friend and colleague

for

his friendship, encouragement,

and support for

my writing..

Contents

Preface

Section One: Understanding Competencies

Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.What are competencies?

2.Two terms

3.Confusion

4.Clarification

4.1 Competency

4.2 Competence

4.3 Two more terms

4.4 The SMR perspective

5.Why competencies?

5.1 Organisational issues

5.2 Employee issues

5.3 The linkage between competency and performance

6.Competency management

7.The SMR experience

Chapter 2 - Competency Models

1.What are models?

1.1. Facts, inferences, and constructs

1.2 Examples of models

2.Competency models and four questions

2.1 Need for a competency model

2.2 Strategies for model building

2.3 Available financial and human resources

2.4 Significance of stakeholders

2.5 Developing a model

3.The Boyatzis model for effective performance

3.1 Competencies and performance

3.2 Causal and associational links

3.3 Competency clusters

4.Competency model - the SMR view

4.1 The Roman Pavilion competency framework

Section Two: Competency Implementation Approach

Chapter 3 - Competency Implementation

1.Introduction

2.Getting management buy in

2.1 Get explicit support

2.2 Project scope document

2.3 Discussion on action plan

2.4 Initiate pilots

3. Implementing the project plan

3.1 Project team

3.2 Establishing business rules

4.Competency profiling

4.1 Creating the competency dictionary

4.2 Competency mapping

4.3 Competency matrix

4.4 Assessment

4.5 Data management

4.6 Sustaining competency management

Chapter 4 - SMR Experience

1. SMR approach

1.1 Position

1.2 Person

1.3 Programmes

1.4 Assessment

1.5 Gap analysis

1.6 Evaluation

2.SMR's Six steps in implementing competency projects

2.1 Commencement

2.2 Development

2.3 Pilot

2.4 Roll out

2.5 Linking to applications

2.6 Conclusion

3.Learning from field experiences

3.1 Types of users

3.2 Factors affecting success or failure of competency project

Section Three

1.Glossary

2.Frequently asked questions

Bibliography

About SMR

Preface

There is a strong business case for competencies at work as they do lead to significant human resource development that provide organisations with a competitive edge. The case for competency management has grown strongly since David McClelland wrote his article in 1973 and the Management Charter Initiative (MCI) was launched in the UK, in the eighties. Though we are aware that competencies by themselves are insufficient for performance, there is ample evidence that competencies form the bedrock for effective and superior performance. This is the reason why organisations, both in the private and public sector, continue to emphasise on them.

This book is a reflection of our experiences in the field of Competency Management and Implementation. It does not aim to be an academic treatise. The purpose of this book is to provide those attempting to implement competencies in their organisations with a clear understanding of competency management. The field experiences documented by our project managers have been summarised for the practitioner.

There are three sections in the book. Section One (Chapters 1 and 2) attempts to provide a clarification of the concept of competency while Section Two (Chapters 3 and 4) details a competency implementation approach, reinforced with the SMR experience. The last section includes a glossary of terms and frequently asked questions.

The aim of Chapter One is to sieve through the many terms currently being used in the competency field to clear much of the confusion. Chapter Two provides information in a practical way to develop competency models. The contributions of Richard Boyatzis, Lyle Spencer and Signe Spencer, David McClelland, the MCI and SMR are elaborated in an easy to understand manner. Chapter Three details the processes involved in implementing competencies in a practical and cost effective way. SMR's experience is detailed in the last chapter. The intention is to guide the practitioner with success factors to follow and pitfalls to avoid.

Competency management can only be successful if the purpose of the competency initiative is clearly established. When it is integrated with applications that are linked with the organisational aspirations, line managers see it as an enterprise initiative rather than an HR initiative. When this happens, line managers support the project and organisations achieve their development goals and the expected return on investments. Two factors for success that we would like to highlight are the presence of a project champion within the organisation and the pursuit of competency as a long term initiative rather than a short term one. Both of these factors are prerequisites for successful project management.

The success of a competency initiative can be justified by four factors:

a performance improvement initiative,

a talent acquisition exercise,

an effective training and development programme that is just-in-time and needs based, and

the ability of the organisation to deploy human resources in an effective manner resulting with the best person-position match not just for the present but also for the future.

This book is the result of a collective effort of several of my colleagues. I must thank all of them for their support. Dr. Nat, Murali, Renu, and Ed Jackson require special mention. Dr. Nat, as usual, brought in a level of conceptual clarity. Murali and the HRDPower team provided substantial input by sharing their field and development experiences. They have been successful in enabling rapid competency implementation with the development of a very intuitive software, HRDPower. Renu struggled to make sense of my disjointed thoughts to make the book readable. Her attention to detail while editing the book helped me a great deal. Ed Jackson, one of our shareholders and an outstanding project management specialist continues to give us constructive advice both on the development and consulting fronts. Many of his contributions on project management are included in this book. Agnes and the printers rushed to complete the design and the printing on time.

All our project managers deserve mention just as our customers who provided us with the field experiences. The project managers followed the game plan and documented the knowledge carefully. Our customers provided us with tremendous learning experiences. Takamatsu and Silva of Matsushita Air-conditioning, Donna Webster of Pan Pacific group of hotels, Annette and Daniel at National Drilling, Seri and team at Malaysia Shipyard Engineering, Datin Latiffah of the University Malaya Medical centre, Raja Harris at Tenaga Generation, and Feldatun and team at Tenaga Engineering. All the customers using our software — HRDPower — around the world provided