Competency Development in Organizations

Introducing PART II – what’s out there and what can we see in the world of competency development.

Frame competencies in the employment cycle, organization, and relationship with organization strategy. The questions posed include: Where to focus on competency development and Where is the ‘X Factor’ located for OJP and organization effectiveness.

The workplace environment introduces the realities of humans into a human environment. HR processes historically deal well with talent through person criteria and role design but, they don’t account for how people actually perform and why they perform differently.

Job architecture and role design need people who know what the role is! Who decides about the tasks, job design, and what knowledge, skills and attributes are required? Is there a weakness here?

If organization design, job architecture, KSAOs, recruitment, assessment and selection processes work well, why do we need competencies at all? We chart some development influences over 40-50 years and the different origins for competencies for human resources. An early insight to strategic choice, and identifying your motives for developing competencies.

Competencies in organization are popular! But approaches to practice are varied, with many challenges. What are they?

Summarizing PART I – What is? What We Know. Introducing PART II.

Introduction to PART II and a short recap for the course so far.

Looking at various development routes for competencies historically, the varied perspectives, and foundations to inconsistency in how competencies are defined and practiced.

What is the X-factor in a competency? What are we looking for to enhance human performance at work, and organization capability? How is this unique within job architecture and organization behavior?

An overview of traditional processes involved in competency development. Who does this? What assumptions and decisions are made? What are the implications from these approaches?

Introducing the Domain – a way of organizing competency development and connecting with organization strategy and organization design.

What does a competency framework look like? An insight to empirically tested competencies, how they were made, and how they connect people and performance.

We consider the impacts for competency development for all roles and all people. A cautionary factor.

Some phrases and terminology surrounding competencies potentially confuse matters. We discuss a few.

This lecture examines some practical and research issues surrounding how competencies are assessed.

This lecture examines risks for objectivity and outcome value from assessment methods.

Reviewing issues and impacts and laying the foundations for strategic choice: competency development or not? This lecture acts as a milestone for the course so far, having accumulated a range of factors and considerations in developing a strategy for competencies.

PART II summary and introduction to PART III.

Introduction to PART II and review of contents.

An overview approach and proposed framework to setting priorities for competency development and connecting to organization strategy and capability.

This lecture emphasizes the importance of creating an evidence-based approach. A presumption that competencies are created because everyone else is doing it is challenged! Developing a business case obliges us to think about what we can reveal from existing organization capability to focus attention on real human capital opportunities.

An empirical definition for ‘competency’ is proposed in this lecture and seeks to consolidate previous definitions, building on theoretical and empirical evidence to date. The definition offers a direct route to competency development and is also designed to support research reliability and validity. The definition also clarifies the location of competencies within organization design.

We proceed to develop actual competency domains. This is assumed at organization level, and can be applied equally to specific job architecture, role design, or functional requirements.

We proceed to develop a single competency – the fundamental method to identify and capture the competency that leads to OJP and/or organization-level capability. This lecture also deals with ‘proficiency’ as a choice term associated with competency development, and it impacts for framework design.

A conceptual competency framework is illustrated and presents how competencies appear as a framework through domains, sub-domains, and into individual competencies. This conceptual framework can be applied into targeted job architecture, for example through functional and role design job families. Impacts for the administration of competency frameworks are discussed.

Considerations for the development of assessment methods are explored, and also discuss the capabilities and resources to support competencies in practice. The value of competencies for analytical processes is discussed in relation to organization capability and effectiveness.

A short lecture summarizing the course and key take aways and learning outcomes. Introduction to downloadable Resources & Information, and future opportunities for ORGMASTR accreditation.