HR ACTIVITIES AND COMPETENCY ANALYSIS

The competency approach focuses on linking business strategies to individual

performance efforts. It also encourages employees to develop competencies that may be used in diverse work situations, rather than being boxed into a job. Development of employees focuses on enhancing their competencies, rather than preparing them for moving to jobs. In this way they can develop capabilities useful throughout the organization as it changes and evolves. The competency approach affects HR activities, particularly those following.

-Selection and placement: Once the competencies needed in jobs have been identified, selection and placement activities must be revised to focus on assessing the competencies of individuals.

-HR development: Training and development efforts must be revised to stress a full range of competencies, rather than being narrowly focused on job skills and knowledge. The hidden competencies are more behaviorally based and require more varied approaches than have been common in many training efforts. Also, in assessing training needs and evaluating the meeting of those needs, the focus must be on abilities, not just knowledge and skills. Career development also must focus on competency growth and opportunities both within and outside the organization.

-Compensation and performance management: Shifting from a task-based pay system to a competency-based pay system requires significant efforts. Assessing performance by measuring results and competencies, especially if work teams are used, is a daunting challenge—especially if the organization is highly structured. Rewarding individuals for demonstrating competencies, particularly those that are less evident and more behavioral, leads to significantly different compensation structures. The ACA survey mentioned earlier found that competency-based compensation is the least common use of competency approaches in organizations.

The difficulties with competency analysis are centered around the major shift in focus from tasks and duties to competencies. Shifting to competencies may lead to broadening jobs to allow more flexibility, greater cross-training, introduction and use of work teams, revising individually focused performance management and pay systems, and changing training efforts to focus on competency development. Yet, this shift to broaden jobs and competencies may not be compatible with the typical formal structures and job-focused activities in many organizations.

Ultimately, it may be that job analysis will shift in order to address the changing nature of broader and looser jobs in some areas, while continuing to be relevant in those areas where jobs remain task-based. Because the task-based approach is much more common, the remainder of this chapter concentrates on the traditional job analysis process.