Thanks for a very original take Claudia. Appreciate the unexpected perspective. I totally agree with you.

Competencies are a signal from the organisation to the individual of the expected areas and levels of performance. They provide the individual with a map or indication of the behaviours that will be valued, recognised and in some organisations rewarded. Competencies can be understood to represent the language of performance in an organisation, articulating the expected outcomes of an individual’s efforts and the manner in which these activities are carried out.
Competency mapping is a process to identify key competencies for an organisation and or a job and incorporating those competencies throughout the various process of the organisation.
Few approaches to competency framework are Behaviour event interviewing, psychometric tests, attitude surveys, expert panels. The one used widely is behaviour event interviewing.
The steps involved in the competency mapping with an end result of job evaluation include the following.
1.Conduct a job analysis by asking incumbents to complete a position information questionnaire(PIQ). This can be provided for incumbents to complete, or you can conduct one-on-one interviews using the PIQ as a guide. A sample PIQ that we use when conducting this step with our clients was provided to this client. The primary goal is to gather from incumbents what they feel are the key behaviors necessary to perform their respective jobs.
2.Using the result of job analysis, you are on your way to begin the competencies throughout your hr processes. A sample of competency based job description will be generated from the PIQ. This was developed after careful y analyzing the input from the represented group of incumbents and converting it to standard competencies.
3.With a competency based job description, you are on your way to begin the competency mapping the competencies throughout your hr processes. The competencies of the respective job description become your factors for assessment on the performance evaluation.
4.Taking the competency mapping one step further, you can use the results of your evaluation to identify in what competencies individuals need additional development or training. This will help you focus your training needs on the goals of the position and company and help your employees develop toward the ultimate success of the organization.
The use of competencies:
Competency frameworks are now seen as an essential vehicle for achieving organizational performance through focusing and reviewing an individual’s capability and potential. Competency framework can be a key element in any change management process by setting out new organizational requirements.
• Underpins performance reviews/ appraisal.
• Greater employee effectiveness
• Greater organizational effectiveness
• More effective training needs analysis
• More effective career management
• Fairer and open recruitment systems
Limitations:
• Competencies are based on what good performers have done in the past and this approach works against rapidly-changing circumstances by setting one particular group of attitudes in stone and not finding people with the right skills and attitudes for new ways of working. It also runs the risk of producing clones rather than a team with mixed skills who balance each other's strengths and weaknesses.
• Some behavioural competencies are basically personality traits which an individual may be unable (or unwilling) to change and it is not reasonable to judge someone on these rather than what he or she actually achieves.
• They can become out of date very quickly due to the fast pace of change in organisations and it can therefore be expensive and time consuming to keep them up-to-date.


if there is inputs or suggestions let me know.

Thanks Madhavi, very comprehensive.

Dear Mr. Harish,

We at Centre for Excellence in Organization Pvt Ltd (CEO) have handholding experience on "COMPETENCY MAPPING PROCESS" For any further information on the details of the process and its implementation, do get in touch with us.

We also work on areas related to culture building,performance management, strategy formulation and score card, surveys,TQM, value stream mapping, outbound training etc.

We operate out of four locations in India and three in abroad. We have served more than 80 clients who will speak for us.

For Further information, visit our website : www.exploreceo.com

Regards,

Paromita
(paromita@exploreceo.com )

Hi Harish,

mor....Nice to go thru ur topic.........

Well what ia hve learnt from my experience is effective use of competency frameworks provides employees with a clearly-defined set of personal development objectives and managers with a consistent measurement tool that could be used across geographical, cultural and work boundaries.

The concept is simple. To complete any task, people need to have the behaviour, skills and knowledge to undertake the task. Defining the behaviour, skills and knowledge (competence) to undertake a set of tasks (a job) and measuring the competence of people allows managers and employees to understand the gap between desired and demonstrated competence and develop a plan to close the gap.

Many organisations however fail in their attempts to build a framework to proactively manage competencies.

The major reason for failure is that competence frameworks are developed and implemented with no clear business purpose in mind. Without a business purpose, there is no objective on which to base design decisions as the framework is built. The resultant design is usually flawed, serving too many masters and is discontinued after a year or two of use.

Competency development frameworks built with a clear business purpose in mind suffer from other fatal flaws limiting the use of and belief in the framework. Frameworks built which confuse tasks with competency are usually complex and difficult to administer and therefore are difficult to communicate to employees.

For a framework to be successful, not only do managers need to believe that business performance will improve, but employees also need to believe that the framework, especially the measurement of competence, is fair and transparent.

Competency development frameworks should have about twelve competencies to describe and measure to be successful in the long term. Any more makes them difficult to administer and communicate. The competencies need to cover the range of behaviours, skills and knowledge required to complete the tasks undertaken by the organisation or section in question.

The difference between behaviour skills and knowledge can be examined through occupations which require the driving of a motor vehicle.

Firstly, a courier driver requires the behaviour, skills and knowledge as follows.

Behaviour; the driver must be courteous, punctual and not too much of a boy racer in the traffic as we don't want to accumulate fines. Skills; must be able to drive a car, evidenced by a licence, read a street directory and able to use a hand held computer to access orders, make payments etc. Knowledge; must know the road rules, again evidenced by a licence, our delivery and credit terms and our returns policy.

Secondly, let us examine another driver, a specific one whose name is Michael Schumacher. Herr Schumacher needs to have the following skills behaviour and knowledge. Behaviour; has ice cool nerves, steely determination and confidence in his ability to the point of arrogance. Skills; a much higher level of driving skill than our courier driver, a licence will not suffice as evidence, able to change gears by pressing buttons and have reflexes measured in milliseconds.

Designing a framework with competencies defined at different levels, eg driving ability in the above example, allows a range of jobs to be described using the same competency set. Typically, a competency framework will have between three and five levels of each competency defined.

If significantly more than twelve competencies need to be defined to cover the range of jobs in an organisation, it is better to develop separate linked frameworks. The linkage comes through the behaviours and some of the skills. Behaviours are closely related to the values and organisation desires and therefore the requirement is likely to be the same in different functions. Some skills will also be the same, for example, communication. However, the knowledge requirement of different functions is normally quite different.

Good competency frameworks will be easy to administer, easy to understand and built for a business purpose. Bad competency frameworks will confuse competency and task and be difficult to administer and understand and will have been built without an obvious business purpose.

Dilip Sharma