Job Descriptions and Job Competency Models Compared 

Job descriptions are often equated with job competency models. While similar in content, there are important differences. They serve different purposes and are developed in different ways. Here is a comparison of the two documents.

Job Descriptions
• Title of position
• Department
• Reports to (to whom the person directly reports)
• Overall responsibility
• Key areas of responsibility
• Qualifications (skills and experience required)

Applicatons: recruitment, compensation structure, performance management (establishing job standards and goals), training.

Example: Project Manager

Job Competency Models (Workitect method)
• Title of Position
• Major responsibilities
• Performance criteria for each responsibility
• Qualifications (competencies: skills, knowledge, and underlying characteristics* required)
• Behavioral indicators (specific ways of demonstrating the competency)
• Links between main responsibilities and competencies

Applications: talent management, succession planning, performance management (evaluating characteristics used to meet or not meet job goals), assessment and selection, training and development.

Examples:  Project Manager, Executive, Account Rep, Call Center Manager, Human Resources Profesional

*A job competency is an underlying characteristic of a person that results in effective and/or superior performance in a job. The characteristic may be a motive, trait, skill, self-image, or body of knowledge.   The Competent Manager, Boyatkis, 1982

Some organizations have combined the two documents and have added required competencies to job descriptions. The advantages are that it reduces the number of HR forms that are needed and makes the list of required qualifications more complete. The main disadvantage is that data needed for talent management, development, and succession planning is usually incomplete.

Regardless of where the competencies are listed, the most important determinant of their effectiveness is how they were identified. A description of Workitect's process for creating competency models can be found on pages 5 & 6 of Integrating HR & Talent Management Processes.

FAQ

Can a generic off-the-shelf competency model be used?  Don’t jobs with the same title require pretty much the same competencies in all organizations?

Each organization has its own culture and “way of doing business”. Even for jobs with identical titles, job success in one organization will require some competencies that are different in another organization. Even a small difference could be critical. This is why we only build custom models, or teach internal consultants how to build their own models.

Develop unique talent management system with “workitect”

Human resources are the best assets a company can possess. Managers strive hard to select, recruit and retain best employees that fit suitably in the organizational work roles.  Companies have their human resources departments which are solely responsible for the recruitment, retention and discipline of staff members. But this is not an easy task. Keeping efficient workers and retaining talent requires that employee’s all requirements are met and they work happily at workplace. Apart from only monetary benefits, employees tend to stay in an organization due to various other factors also like working environment, companionship, respect, work pressure etc. If any of such physiological needs are not met, there seem to be an increased turnover which managers need to overcome.

This has created an immense demand for ‘talent management system’ within organizations. Talent Management is known to a set of united organizational HR processes intended to pull in, develop, inspire, and retain productive, engaged employees. The primary goal of talent management is to create a superior, sustainable organization that meets its strategic and operational goals. In simple words, as the name suggests, it is managing the ability, competency and power of employees within the organization.

Talent management process-

·         Understanding the requirement

·         Sourcing the best talent

·         Attracting and pulling in the talenthttp://www.workitect.com/Consulting/hr-and-talent-management-applications.html

·         Recruiting the talent

·         Selecting the talent

·         Training and development

·         Retention

·         Promotion

·         Competency mapping

·         Performance appraisal

·         Career planning

·         Succession planning

Benefits of talent management system-

·         Places right person at right job

·         Retaining the top talent in the organization

·         Better selection and hiring of employees

·         Understanding and maintain good relations with employees

·         Better professional development decisions

·         Identifying those individuals with the highest leadership potential across the organization early in their careers.

·         Accelerating the development of high-potential talent and improving the quality of executive leadership

·         Connection corporate strategy with the quantity and quality of leadership required to execute it.

Want to develop a talent management strategy for your organization too? Contact “workitect”.  We are a leading consulting and training firm offering complete talent management solutions to companies. We have been successfully working in the field with plenty of experience assisting many of our clients and giving them positive and innovative ways to solve all their human resource development queries for efficient workforce that gives productive results. Our team of professional is keen to give most suitable solutions to your project that ensures to help your organization gain competitive advantage.

We also specialize to develop various competency systems, competency guides, directories and models. We use customizable tools to simplify implementation of these talent management and competency development methods. You can be assured to avail best services in terms of quality as well as in cost effective manner. So why delay? Contact us today to make use of best services and get superior performance output with best suited talent management solutions for your organization

Develop the competency of "Fostering Diversity"

From Workitect's Competency Development Guide, a 280-page resource guide for developing thirty-five competencies. This competency is also Functional Area Competency #11 in SHRM's Body of Competency and Knowledge.

Importance of Fostering Diversity
Diversity has a serious and direct impact on business results. Successful organizations are able to tap into the brainpower of talented and diverse workforces in order to serve a diversity of customers. Innovative thinking and problem solving is more likely to come from teams comprised of people with different cultural and demographic backgrounds, i.e. people with different points of view. Organizations need to optimize the use of talent at all levels with behaviors that reflect that talent comes in different packages, i.e. color, sex, age, etc.
Fostering Diversity is closely related to three other competencies in Workitect's Competency Dictionary – Global Perspective, Fostering Teamwork and Interpersonal Awareness.

Definition of Fostering Diversity: Working effectively with all races, nationalities, cultures, disabilities, ages and sexes; Promoting equal and fair treatment and opportunity for all.
An employee demonstrating this competency:

1. Proactively seeks information from others who have different personalities, backgrounds, and styles. Includes them in decision-making and problem solving
2. Communicates and cooperates with others who have a diversity of cultural and demographic backgrounds
3. Makes it easy for others to feel valuable regardless of diversity in personality, culture, or background
4. Includes in conversations people with diverse cultural backgrounds, and invites them to be part of informal work-related activities, such as going to lunch or attending company social events
5. For a manager or team leader, hires and develops people with a diversity of cultural and demographic backgrounds.
6. For an employee, helps recruit and orient employees with a diversity of cultural and demographic backgrounds

General Considerations in Developing this Competency
Learning to value the diversity of people requires that you first understand your own values and beliefs. Those beliefs contribute to making you who you are and contribute to your worldview. It is important to recognize that other people may not agree with your beliefs or understand them. One of the best ways to learn about the value of diversity, and to foster it, is to work on a team of members with diverse backgrounds. Push yourself beyond your current environment and interactions to develop sensitivity to issues of diversity, contributing to a less ethnocentric self. Doing so can help you more fully understand, appreciate, and maximize the talents of others.
Both managers and non-managers are able to develop and demonstrate ‘fostering diversity’. Executives and managers, however, have the ability to make a greater impact, by ‘managing diversity’ - through staffing decisions and personal behaviors that motivate others to value and foster diversity.

Practicing this Competency

• Learn more about your own cultural values and background to gain a better appreciation for how they may impact your decision-making style, values, and reactions to different views.
• Actively solicit input from a wide variety of people and functions. Learn about the backgrounds, experiences and education of team members.
• Draw together diverse groups when discussing issues, solving problems, and developing opportunities. Look at issues and opportunities from other people’s viewpoints before making a decision.
• Slow down or use easier vocabulary when communicating with nonnative speakers so they can more easily follow and offer their own thoughts.
• When asking someone to explain a point of view different from your own, be sure to say that your intention is to understand the person’s viewpoint, not to have him or her justify it.
• Seek to understand diversity from a global, not just a national, perspective, if appropriate to your business and location.
• Remember that some people want their national, philosophical, or other differences to be recognized openly, while others do not.
• Partner with an individual whose background and experiences are different from your own and contract to both learn and teach one or two skills that will improve your performance in some way.
• Build a support network with colleagues who are interested in more effectively leveraging diversity. Explore ideas with each other and implement them.
• Learn more about other cultures and their values through travel, books, films, and conversations with those who have experienced other cultures, and by attending local cultural events and celebrations.

Obtaining Feedback
Ask subordinates, colleagues and your coach to describe their perception of the degree to which they see you “fostering diversity”. What are you doing that is positive and what are you doing that is not positive, or may in fact be sending the wrong signal? Ask for ongoing feedback and help. Also, how can you accelerate your fostering of diversity in your workplace? How can you all, as a group, do more to create a more diverse team?

Learning from Experts
Ask people from a variety of backgrounds for help in understanding their experiences, perspectives, and culture. Try to understand the individual as a person, and not just as a representative of a particular group. Looking at the person either as an individual only or as a representative of a group usually leads to wrong assumptions.
Establish relationships with people who are different from you. Although it is a natural tendency for people to surround themselves with others similar to them, connecting with people of different backgrounds will help you learn about the unique perspectives and contributions others have to offer.
Many large organizations have a diversity officer, usually in the human resources department. Meet with that person and ask for their advice. Interview managers and executives who have created diverse, successful teams. Observe what they do and determine how they achieved success.

Coaching Suggestions for Managers
If you are coaching someone who is trying to develop this competency, you can:

• Model the “fostering of diversity” in everything you say and do. Adopt a learner, versus judger, mindset. Utilize the differences in team members to accomplish organizational goals, and challenge assumptions and practices that limit opportunities.
• Encourage the person to push beyond their current environment and interactions to develop their knowledge of, and sensitivity to, issues of diversity. Doing so can help the person more fully understand, appreciate, and maximize the talents of others.
• Encourage participation in company or community programs that focus on learning about and valuing different cultures, races, religions and ethnic backgrounds.
• Observe the assumptions the person appears to make about people and ideas. Such assumptions may be based on both external, easily identifiable differences, as well as on more subtle, invisible differences. Share your observations.

Sample Development Goals
By February 1, I will partner with an individual whose background and experiences are different than my own and contract to both learn and/or teach several skills that will improve my performance in some way.
By October 1, I will interview Dave Murphy about the things he has done to build a successful, diverse team.
By March 1, I will fill at least one of our three openings with an individual who will expand the diversity of our team.
By May 1, I will create a support network with colleagues who are interested in more effectively leveraging diversity. At least two ideas will be explored and implemented by July 1.
At the next staff meeting on October 15, I will ask for everyone’s ideas on increasing and leveraging diversity within our group.
Resources for Developing this Competency are listed in the Fostering Diversity page of the Competency Development Guide.

Let Us Help You
Organizations can provide every employee with the content of the Competency  Development Guide, and customize it to their needs, through the purchase of an intellectual property license.
Workitect is a leading provider of competency-based talent development systems, tools and programs. We use “job competency assessment” to identify the characteristics of superior performers in key jobs in an organization. These characteristics, or competencies, become “blueprints” for outstanding job performance. Competencies include personal characteristics, motives, knowledge, and behavioral skills. Job competency models are the foundation of an integrated talent management system that includes selection, performance management, succession planning, and leadership development. Contact our experienced consultants to learn how we can improve all areas of your talent management processes.

Benefits of a Generic Competency Dictionary

Generic competency dictionaries are essential when developing multiple competency models within the same organization, to ensure that common skills and characteristics are always described with the same competency names. The organization reviews and revises a set of generic competencies, which then serve as building blocks for the construction of the individual competency models. Whenever a competency is used, it has the same general definition, but the behavioral descriptors can vary from one job to the next.

A generic competency dictionary has several uses in model building.

1) It provides a common conceptual framework or starting point for the model building team. The framework is useful in categorizing initial ideas about job requirements, and the model building team can modify or add to the framework.

2) The framework can be used in a resource panel by asking participants to rate the importance of a set of generic competencies selected for relevance to the job.

3) The framework can be used to guide the analysis of critical/behavioral event interviews.

Model builders can use a generic competency framework to note and record each instance of each generic competency. The analyst uses a spreadsheet to record the interviewer’s initials, the page number from the transcript, a paraphrase of the significant behavior, and the names and numbers of relevant generic competencies and behavioral indicators.

The data from each analyst’s spreadsheet is combined to create a database that can be sorted in multiple ways. A list of all instances of a generic competency and its individual behavioral indicators, and the number of instances of each element of the generic dictionary can be quickly tabulated. The final model is not limited to concepts from the generic competency dictionary. A competency can be conceptualized by drawing from more than one of the generic competencies; and some times new competencies unrelated to any of the existing generic ones are identified.

Review Workitect's Competency Dictionary.

Doing More than One Job Competency Model in an Organization

The Multiple Jobs Approach to Model Building

In the Multiple Jobs Approach competency models are developed simultaneously for a set of jobs (e.g., all professional jobs in marketing; all R&D jobs, or all the job in a small organization).

Use of Building Block Competencies

To ensure consistency among these competency models, the first main step is to identify a set of building block competencies from which each competency model will be constructed. One source of building block competencies is a generic competency dictionary: a distillation of commonly occurring competencies and their behavioral indicators into an organized, conceptually clear set of competencies. These generic competency dictionaries can be obtained from consulting firms that specialize in competency modeling and adapted to fit the organization’s language and culture.

Generic competency dictionaries typically focus on non-technical competencies. If the competency models need to include technical skills and knowledge, as is often the case, a set of relevant technicalskill/knowledge competencies can be identified with the help of subject matter experts within the organization.

Identification and Use of Competency Levels

When building competency models with the Multiple Jobs Approach, it is often useful to identify and distinguish different levels of a competency. For example, a first-level management competency model might need to include a basic level of planning skill, but a project management competency model would require a higher level of planning skill. A competency model for nurses might include a basic level of understanding of cardiac knowledge, but the competency model for a cardiologist would specify a higher level of this skill.

When defining competency levels, one approach is to establish a set of levels with general definitions that are used for every competency. Usually, there are three or four levels, as in the following table.

Level	General Definition
Basic	Has the level of skill expected after completion of an introductory training program or course; can perform tasks requiring a limited range of skills; work must be closely supervised.
Intermediate	Has the level of skill expected after significant and varied work experience in the area or completion of several courses; can perform task requiring a broad range of skills; work requires limited supervision.
Advanced	Has the level of skill expected after extensive experience or completion of many courses; can solve highly challenging problems and serve as an expert resource.

Some organizations use a set of general levels like these but develop different definitions of these levels for each competency. The use of competency levels makes it possible to distinguish the requirements of different jobs. Levels are also useful in performance assessment and appraisal. For example, a manager preparing a performance appraisal can use the competency levels to assess an employee on each of the competencies identified for the employee’s job. The use of competency levels also facilitates matching employee assessments with job requirements for internal selection or for career planning.

Use of Core Competencies

  

In applying the Multiple Jobs Approach, some companies establish a core set of competencies for all of the jobs or for all of the jobs within a job family, such as R & D. For example, an organization might decide that the competency model for every job should include Results Orientation, Flexibility, and Customer Orientation. The IT Department might identify additional competencies required in all of its jobs. The competency model for a particular job within the IT Department would include the core competencies for the organization, the competencies for all IT Department jobs, plus several job-specific competencies. This approach can lead to large competency models with 16 or more competencies.

When the Multiple Jobs Approach is Appropriate

This approach is appropriate whenever competency models are needed for several jobs within an organization. The approach is especially useful when it is important to specify technical skill/knowledge requirements.

This approach is also appropriate when HR staff plan to apply the competency models for career planning and succession planning, which involve matching employee assessments to the requirements of multiple jobs.

Because the administrative management of multiple competency models can be complex, many good technological solutions have been developed for this purpose. Some involve purchasing or leasing software, while others involve purchasing a license to use web-based applications that reside on third party servers. Technology facilitates competency assessment, development planning, and internal selection.

Advantages of the Multiple Jobs Approach

One advantage of this approach is that the competency models developed from it cover many jobs in an organization, thus achieving a broad impact. Because there are different competency models for different jobs, this approach also facilitates HR tasks such as internal selection, career planning, and selection planning, which require matching employee profiles to job requirements. This approach also simplifies comparison of the requirements of different jobs.

Because this approach involves using a common set of building block competencies, these building block competencies can become a common conceptual framework for talking about the requirements of different jobs. Using this common framework, HR staff can develop a training curriculum and other developmental experiences which are applicable across jobs.

Disadvantages of the Multiple Jobs Approach

This approach is inherently complex, because it involves working with many different competency models. Managing the use of multiple competency models can be complex for HR staff, unless they use one of the competency management software applications designed for this purpose.

The complexity of the Multiple Jobs Approach also makes it harder to explain and communicate to staff.

The One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Competency Modeling

In the One-Size-Fits-All Approach a competency model is developed for a broadly defined set of jobs that may have very different responsibilities and knowledge requirements. Most often, the competency model is developed for one level of jobs, such as managers, associates, or senior leaders.

The competency model often includes competencies selected for alignment with the company’s values and strategic direction. Thus competencies may have names like “Respecting All People” or “Bias for Action.”

The competencies are often described in general terms that are not job specific, since thecompetency model covers a broad range of jobs which may have significantly different responsibilities.

When the One-Size-Fits-All Approach is Appropriate

• When line management or HR wants to promote alignment with vision, values and strategy
• When key stakeholders prefer simple solutions and have a low tolerance for complexity
• When HR wants to implement something quickly that will have broad impact
• When the budget for developing competency models is limited

Advantages of the One-Size-Fits-All Approach
The One-Size-Fits-All Approach sends a clear and simple message about what the personal characteristics and skills that the organization considers to be important. A competency model built with this approach is broadly applicable to a large number of employees, as are applications based on the model. For example, a competency assessment tool based on the model can be used with all of the employees in the job. Finally, the use of this approach promotes a common language and conceptual framework to use in describing key skills.

Disadvantages of the One-Size-Fits-All Approach

Because the model is used with a wide range of jobs, employees may not feel that it applies well to their particular job. If many of the competencies were selected to describe what the leaders would like people to demonstrate, rather than what superior performers actually do, people may perceive the model to be more espoused than true. The One-Size-Fits-All Approach is not as useful as other approaches in guiding selection, since selection of candidates for a specific job may require consideration of job-specific skills, knowledge and experience that are not included in the One-Size-Fits-All competency model.

Data Collection in the One-Size-Fits-All Approach

When using this approach, it is less important to identify responsibilities and tasks. Since the model will cover a broad range of jobs, the only responsibilities that are important are ones that apply to all of the jobs. Since the competency model will usually reflect the organization’s mission, values and strategic direction, it is important to talk to senior HR leaders and senior line leaders if possible, to ensure that the mission, values and strategic direction are understood and carefully considered. For the competency model to have credibility, it is highly desirable to conduct interviews with several superior performers. These interviews should focus on obtaining specific behavioral accounts of what these persons did during key job situations such as accomplishments or performance of important and challenging tasks.

Read more in Workitect's Research Report "Key Questions to Ask before Building Competency Models".

The Single Job Competency Model

When deciding how to approach a competency model building project, it is useful to consider three distinctive approaches:

•   Single Job Competency Model
•   One-Size-Fits-All Approach
•   Multiple Job Approach

A project usually focuses on one of these approaches, although it is possible to use a combination of these approaches within one organization.

Single Job Competency Model
This approach focuses on a single, narrowly defined job that is important to the organization’s success and has at least 10 job holders. The jobs covered by the competency model should have similar responsibilities and performance measures. Any requirements for technical skill or knowledge should be similar across the set of jobs. Examples of jobs for which a single job competency model is appropriate include sales representative, customer service representative, project manager, and plant manager.
The single job approach uses extensive and rigorous data collection, to ensure that the competency model contains highly specific behavioral descriptions of what one needs to do and how, in order to achieve superior results. This approach often includes a detailed breakdown of the main responsibilities and tasks and shows how they are linked to the competencies. Compared to the other two approaches, the single job approach is more time consuming and expensive to implement.

Data Gathering for the Single Job Approach
Usually, in the single job approach, data are gathered in multiple ways. For example, job analysis interviews may be used with job holders to identify main responsibilities, break each main responsibility down into tasks and sub-tasks. A resource panel, comprised of several job holders and several managers of jobholders, may be used to gather the same type of information, as well as information about performance criteria and measures and about changes in the business and organizational context that have implications for new and emerging competency requirements. In order to develop highly detailed behavioral descriptions of the competencies, the Single Job Approach almost always includes structured behavioral interviews with superior performers in the job, in which these persons are asked to provide detailed accounts of how they approached several key tasks or work situations.

Advantages of the Single Job Approach
A competency model built using the Single Job Approach has high face validity and high credibility with job holders and their managers. The model provides a recipe for superior performance. The specific behavioral descriptions of the competencies are useful when developing training programs. The rigor of the methodology ensures that if the organization wishes to use the model for selection, there will be a strong legal justification for doing so.

Disadvantages of the Single Job Approach
Because this approach targets a single, narrowly defined job, the competency model and HR applications built on it affect a relatively small number of employees. As noted earlier, the Single Job Approach is relatively expensive and time consuming to implement, especially if competency models are desired for multiple jobs.

When the Single Job Approach is Appropriate
This approach is most appropriate when:

•   There is an opportunity to gain competitive advantage by improving the productivity of people in a key job
•   The potential productivity gains from applying the model justify the time and expense of building it
•   There is a need to use the competency model as a basis for developing a training program or curriculum
•   The organization currently has several superior performers in the job
•   The job is expected to continue to exist in the organization for at least three years.

The One-Size-Fits-All Approach and Multiple Jobs Approach will be discussed in future blogs.