Marcia Dresner

Competency models should be an integral part of a comprehensive talent management strategy that starts with needs analysis and includes hiring, learning and development, succession planning, and more. A recent CUX Research Study into the uses and integration of competencies shows that, while they are in use or in the planning stages in many member organizations, they are still not being used in a comprehensive fashion that would enable them to be the basis for “hire to retire” talent management.

Asked what characterized their use of competencies, a quarter of member respondents answered that they were “in progress” – that is that they don’t use them as yet, but are thinking about using them in the future (Figure 1). Thirty percent were using comprehensive or somewhat comprehensive models, with the rest somewhere in between. The respondents were mostly large companies with 40 percent between 10,000 and 50,000 employees and an equal number larger than 50,000.

There was some evidence that companies were using competencies to support talent management. When asked what best characterized the reasons for implementing competencies, documenting leadership behaviors and driving competency-based learning were the most mentioned (Figure 2), but succession planning, job-based performance standards, and support for hiring ranked fairly high as well.

But not everyone has used competencies successfully. And those that haven’t cited primarily the time and effort involved in development as the reason (Figure 3).

GETTING FULL VALUE

The competencies being used make it harder to apply them to comprehensive talent management. Almost half of respondents use behavioral-based competencies – where specific behaviors are defined and ratings illustrate the frequency at which those behaviors are demonstrated (Figure 4). These are difficult to assess during the hiring process, and may also limit the use of competencies as L&D decision-making tools.

Competencies play an important role in learning with that being the most often mentioned talent management process integrated with competencies. Annual performance reviews jumps to equal status, with succession planning and recruiting mentioned by about half of respondents (Figure 5).

Interestingly, given the link between competencies and learning, most companies don’t integrate their competencies into their learning management architecture. They use a separate performance management system instead.

A CRITICAL GAP

L&D doesn’t stand alone. A well-developed set of competencies can further the integration of L&D into a comprehensive strategy that results in employees that are properly prepared, and function in a manner consistent with corporate expectations.

Marcia Dresner is Senior Researcher, Corporate University Xchange. She can be reached at mdresner@corpu.com.