By Barbara Bowes

In today's fast changing and global marketplace, companies are constantly striving to find ways to become and to stay competitive. Strategies such as total quality management, business process re-engineering, and activity based costing have each made their mark on productivity improvement.

In the last few years, however, we have seen a slight shift toward the realization that competitiveness and success are not based solely on product, technology, efficient administrative systems or financial re-engineering but also include some intangible people related components. This realization has led to an array of research and publishing themes such as the learning organization, the knowledge worker, teamwork or involvement programs. But, how, you might ask, could this be applied to my company?

One key strategy that we have successfully used to assist a fast growing client to increase internal flexibility and competitiveness is the application of the skills based or competency approach to human resource management. A competency is essentially the unique capability, knowledge and/or behaviour that provides a company with the potential source for competitive advantage.

This strategy requires the development of a comprehensive checklist or profile of all internal technical competencies as well as an identification of those core competencies that every company professional would exhibit. This comprehensive profile enables a company to match the firm's capabilities with opportunities in the marketplace and to ensure that they have the right mix of skills at the right time.

Once the competencies of each functional area have been identified, the company can use this knowledge for all other aspects of their human resource strategy. It is extremely effective for recruiting new staff as each competency is defined with specific behaviours that the recruiter is looking for. The competency profile approach also sets up the development of specific, behaviour oriented standards to be used in the design of performance review and enables managers to comment on specific behaviours in a more objective manner. As well, a company can more accurately benchmark and apply compensation practices as key skills the marketplace is paying for are identified. As well, we have found that larger clusters of functional competencies can be created thus reducing the number of job classifications. Finally, we have found that this exercise more clearly identifies opportunities for staffing flexibilities within a company.

From the staff position, comments that we have received include more satisfaction in knowing not just what the roles and responsibilities of a certain function are but what skills are required to succeed and progress in the company. The staff can then play a larger role in their own career path within a company.

There has been a great deal of study in the area of competencies in the last few years and there is some debate as to whether or not personality traits, values and styles should be included. It is our philosophy that these personality traits are indeed competencies and should be examined. In fact, our experience shows that an employee can have all of the technical competencies required, but if there is not a match between the more intangible personality related competencies of the individual and those required by the firm, that individual will indeed fail in the job.

Some of the generic competencies defined by research include factors such as sensitivity, tenacity, judgement, decisiveness, energy, initiative, tolerance, independence, adaptability or motivation. Others have been identified as self-confidence, positive regard, and concern for relationships, self-control, self-assessment, or stamina. Many of these you will note, are more
personality related and although at first glance, they are not unique, a company must confirm which of these "soft" competencies are indeed unique to their various job functions.

Research has also provided us with some common technical competencies. These include such factors as managing work, managing people, technical leadership, managing innovation and change, client relations, ethics, communications, team orientation, systems integration, financial management, crisis handling, quality commitment, visionary leadership and practical orientation.

Whereas we know that effective behaviour in one job in one company does not translate into effectiveness for that job in another company even though the job itself may be similar, it is thus important to identify those specific, more technical competencies that may be organization specific. Thus our experience has shown that factors such as project leadership, the ability to analyze and project industry trends and identify and integrate best practices is also critical to competitive success.

Interesting enough, we have also found that the concept of competencies in the workplace is somewhat hard for both management and staff to relate to. It seems that they are so used to the old job description structure that they find it hard to think in terms of what skills they use as they do their job. This is unfortunate as many people simply take themselves for granted and they forget all of the skills that they use while they are doing their job. If this is the case, it is easy to see how a company can get into a rut by losing touch with their organizational capabilities and thus miss opportunities in themarketplace.

We know from experience that competency identification, as a competitive strategy is very powerful. We have seen it in action. If it is an approach that you wish to pursue, you will have to be prepared for a total revamping of how your organization and your staff thinks, how people are recruited and rewarded and how they are measured. But, part of the power of the competency approach is that everyone can see the skills required for each function and know what additional skills are required as they move through each competency level. They can see and relate to specific, concrete behaviours and understand the performance standards and ratings. All in all, we have seen that a competency approach empowers employees and thus serves to create that competitive advantage that a company needs.