Implementing Competencies - 6 things to avoid

Copyright (c) 2008 Chiswick Consulting Limited

Competencies have been around a long time. But there are a number of pitfalls organisations run into when implementing them in their business.

1. 'Sell' competencies as an HR initiative.

They might not sound strategic to the non HR person, but competency models have the potential to deliver millions in extra revenue and output - don't underestimate or undersell them. Line managers love competency models as they provide a language to describe performance, give feedback and target coaching. Getting buy in from line managers and involving them in the development of the competencies will ensure successful implementation later on.

2. Ignore the application.

Before researching and developing your competency model, you should identify how you intend to use them - otherwise you risk leaving an investment tool sitting on the shelf. Including them in recruitment and selection will initially only impact new employees, performance appraisal will impact across the organisation but might require some years to rollout.

3. Develop competencies based on the status quo.

Outstanding performers in complex jobs such as leadership roles, can deliver twice as much output as average performers. Developing a competency model based on your outstanding performers will raise the performance of your business overall. However, if you want to encourage or reward existing performance levels in your organisation then workshop the behaviours and values everyone in the organisation already has in spades and restate these in a shiny new model.

4. Define competencies which are 'nice to have' or aspirational.

To deliver value, competencies must be defined with a job of work in mind. Including competencies which have no relevance to a particular role or function means behaviours are encouraged or rewarded which do not add more or greater output. This can add to a lack of role clarity and confusion. When competency modelling, define the work and performance measures of a job as a first step to ensure the competencies are grounded in reality.

5. Spend hours word crafting to get the perfect end result.

No competency model can be word perfect every single time. Phrases such as 'Customer Service' or 'People Leadership' will mean different things to different people. Managing people's expectations about how many drafts and redrafts the model will go through is an important aspect to getting buy in. Spending hours or even days word crafting a competency model is not time well spent. Spending time on how we might measure and coach for better 'Customer Service' is, however, a better use of time and resource.

6. Use them for downsizing and for inspiring great performance This is a serious point.

Competencies applied in a downsizing or redundancy initiative should be used for this exercise alone and have a short shelf life. They need to be thrown out or significantly repackaged if you want to use them again.

So do all of the above and you can rest assured that you have underoptimised your greatest HR tool.


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Pam Kennett is Founder and Director of Chiswick Consulting Limited a management consultancy which provides advice and direction to clients in marketing and human resources. Pam has been a management consultant for more than 15 years. Contact her at pam@chiswickconsulting.com or visit http://www.chiswickconsulting.com/competencies.shtml .