Developing competency models to promote integrated …

1 Developing competency models to promote integrated Human Resource Practices 309 Developing competency models TOPROMOTE integrated HUMANRESOURCE PRACTICESH uman Resource Management, Fall 2002, Vol. 41, No. 3, Pp. 309 324 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Published online in Wiley InterScience ( ).DOI: Rodriguez, Rita Patel, Andrea Bright, Donna Gregory,and Marilyn K. GowingToday, competencies are used in many facets of human resource management, ranging fromindividual selection, development, and performance management to organizational strategic plan-ning.

2 By incorporating competencies into job analysis methodologies, the Office of PersonnelManagement (OPM) has developed robust competency models that can form the foundation foreach of these initiatives. OPM has placed these models into automated systems to ensure accessfor employees, human resources professionals, and managers. Shared access to the data creates ashared frame of reference and a common language of competencies that have provided the basisfor competency applications in public sector agencies. 2002 Wiley Periodicals, people are critical forhigh-performing organizations.

3 Whetherdriven by the need to improve efficiency, pro-ductivity, or profitability, or by the desire toprovide world-class customer service, the com-bination of two components is critical: select-ing talented and high-potential people to carryout the organization s mission and creating aculture that supports them. Many organiza-tions recognize the link betweenhigh-performing people, an organizationalculture that supports mission accomplish-ment, and high-performing organizations. Twochallenges faced by most organizations are theidentification of the most effective means torecruit, select, and retain a high-performingworkforce, particularly within a tight labormarket, and the creation and maintenance ofa dynamic culture for employees that fostersachievement.

4 Human resource managementprofessionals can contribute to the organiza-tions achievement of their missions and goalsby providing managers and employees withinformation and tools to meet these challengesby maximizing human capital. Competenciesprovide the foundation through which humanresource professionals can contribute to thesuccess of their Are the FutureDavid McClelland (1973) is often creditedwith launching the competency movementwith the publication of his paper Testing forCompetence Rather than Intelligence.

5 McClelland s research suggested that aca-demic aptitude and knowledge content testsalone did not predict high job performance orsuccess in life, and that individual character-istics or competencies can identify high per-formers. The use of competencies to identifyhigh-performing people, or outstanding em-310 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Fall 2002ployees, has gradually become widespread inhuman resource management (Boyatzis, 1982;Lawler, 1994; Spencer & Spencer, 1993;Ulrich, 1997). Those characteristics that setthese employees apart provide the basis forrecruitment, selection, and development strat-egies that are effective and provide a high re-turn on resource professionals must wiselyinvest their scarce resources.

6 In the past, or-ganizations hired those who could perform aset of tasks, usually focusing on technicalknowledge. These traditional job-based selec-tion and development strategies are less flex-ible than competency -based selection anddevelopment strategies. In rapidly changingbusiness environments, organizations are rec-ognizing the value of a workforce that is notonly highly skilled and technically adept, butmore importantly, a workforce that can learnquickly, adapt to change, communicate effec-tively, and foster interpersonal characteristics, or competencies, arecritical to organizational survival, productiv-ity, and continual focusing on the full range of compe-tencies or whole-person assessment, the em-phasis is on potential.

7 Or what the person canbring to the organization, rather than on a setof narrowly defined tasks based on job require-ments. Organizations that select for compe-tencies such as creative thinking begin to builda high-performance culture. Using competen-cies as the basis for staffing provides the flex-ibility needed to select and place individualswhere they can best serve the in the Federal GovernmentAs the use of competencies has grown, thenumber and variety of competency models andmethods for Developing competencies havealso continued to increase.

8 In 1997, the Soci-ety for Industrial and Organizational Psycholo-gists commissioned a task force to review thepractice of competency modeling and compareit to job analysis , noting the strengths andweaknesses of various techniques(Schippmann et al., 2000). For example, typi-cal multimethod job analysis components areseen as more rigorous in methodology thantypical competency modeling techniques,which are often based on qualitative ap-proaches. One of the strengths of competencymodels is that they are often linked to thebusiness goals and strategies of the organiza-tion.

9 Additionally, competency models provideinsight into core competencies that are com-mon to multiple jobs within an United States Office of PersonnelManagement (OPM) has attempted to capi-talize on the strengths of both traditional jobanalysis techniques and competency modeldevelopment in its work. In 1990, OPM be-gan Developing competency models , recogniz-ing the potential for the application ofcompetency-based human resource applica-tions in the federal government. OPM soughtto incorporate traditional job analysis meth-odology into the development of competencymodels to provide an empirical foundation forthe use of competencies by employees, man-agers, and human resource (HR) profession-als in the public sector.

10 To ensure competencymodels could be used by all HR functions, theywere based on job analyses that met the stan-dards set forth by the Uniform Guidelines onEmployee Selection Procedures (Equal Em-ployment Opportunity Commission, 1978)and other legal and professional Developing competency models , itis important to establish a definition of com-petency. OPM defines a competency as a mea-surable pattern of knowledge, skill, abilities,behaviors, and other characteristics that an in-dividual needs to perform work roles or occu-pational functions successfully.