What are competencies?
Competencies are the skills and attributes that an organisation, and the people who work in it need to demonstrate in order to perform with excellence.  Competencies are invaluable in providing a common and consistent language for discussing performance and potential and can be used in recruitment, career development, performance management and self development.

It is of fundamental importance that time should be spent analysing the roles that your employees fulfil and deciding exactly what you would like them to do before you recruit or develop anyone.

If not, you run a whole range of risks from wasting your money recruiting people with the wrong skills or developing them in the wrong direction. However, you could also be opening the doors to successful claims of unfair discrimination at an employment tribunal, especially if you are unable to demonstrate a link between your methods and the skills in the job.

A process of job analysis and competency design can overcome these issues. Drawing on a selection of classic techniques such as Visionary Interviews, Repertory Grids and Critical Incidents Analysis, as well as with more up to date Structured Focus Groups and Computer Based Modelling, we are able to elicit the key skills and behaviours that distinguish a top performer.

We will then be able to weave these attributes into a simple and user-friendly model of the core Competencies and behaviours that underpin success in the role in question. This model can be used for a variety of purposes, including recruitment, career development, performance management and self-development.

Job analysis and competency design is a relatively complex area, with a large number of factors that need to be considered and responded to, such as organisational structure and culture, population sampling and model usage, and so on, however for more detail, please do get in touch and we’d be delighted to go through the process in more depth.

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