Introduction
I have been working in the area of skills, competencies capability and talent management for 30 years. I have had the pleasure of working with almost 100 organisations, many large and well-known, other smaller and more niche, to help them create competency frameworks as part of business transformation.
With the encouragement of colleagues in my team I felt that it was the right time to share some of my knowledge and experience in this area. In this first article I have set out some of the basics, so that we have a shared vocabulary to describe the elements that contribute to the whole picture of employee development, assessment and accreditation. My aim is to simplify if I can, to promote thought and discussion, maybe explore the challenges, but certainly to identify the value that organisations achieve through the proper implementation of the processes.
Knowledge
A fundamental requirement to do any specialist job. Knowledge can be acquired through education, often recognised through a qualification, a degree for instance, or the award of a certificate.
Many organisations encourage employees to increase their knowledge by e-learning, which can be very effective. There is a huge range of e-learning available through the internet, or an employer may have their own learning management portal.
Face to face training courses are often preferred, as the trainer can see if someone is having difficulty with the subject matter and can intervene to support and coach the employee. There is also a benefit of the opportunity of hands-on practice, to help the employee begin to develop the knowledge into a skill. Many longer-term training programmes, like apprenticeships or internships, encourage the employee to gain practical, hands on skills.
Many employers regard academic qualifications as indicative of intelligence, but without relevant experience they may think the employee will be lacking the skills and awareness they need to be effective in a particular role.
Skills
Skills, or “competences”, are acquired through experience in a role. In technical environments they are often signified by a certificate, awarded by a governing body. The fact that the employee has this certificate suggests that they have been tested for knowledge and practical application of the skill. Years of experience may also add to the credibility of the employee. A lawyer with 25 years’ experience has credibility, particularly if they have a specialisation. The same is true for an engineer, or many other professions.
However, post qualification experience is hard to quantify. The area of specialisation may have moved on significantly, with new technology or new processes emerging. For this reason many regulatory bodies insist on re-testing and re-certifying skills every few years. For instance, gas engineers have to re-certify every few years, it’s important for the safety of the public that their work is carried out to a high standard. I’m sure there are many other examples.
‘…post qualification experience is hard to quantify.’
Trevor Dawes, OPL Chairman
Where we are asked to develop a competence framework to help in the assessment of employee skills and knowledge we are careful in how we create a scale to measure and assess. We are always careful to include competence indicators at each level to show what the employee does which demonstrates increasing levels of competence. It’s not about how many certificates they have, but how they put their knowledge and skill into effect. If gathering knowledge is their “input”, then what is their “output”.
I was lucky enough to work with organisations in the rail industry many years ago. There was a huge emphasis on safety, as you would expect, with a vast number of qualifications, certificates and specialisations. With the help of employees and management across those businesses we were able to simplify assessment of competence without losing the value of all the effort spent on training, certification and compliance. We created a table of competencies with 4 increasing levels of competence from “Awareness” to “Expert”. Each level had several carefully crafted statements, which indicated what could be expected from an employee to demonstrate that competence at each of those 4 increasing levels. At no point did we refer to a requirement for certification or accreditation. These were set as a part of the job description, or job specification.
We made it relatively easy to look at job spec and identify what level of competence was required to perform well in that role. Once people understood this it was then much easier to look at an employee’s performance and rate their personal competencies against the job competence profile. This allowed the identification of their strengths and a way of targeting development on the areas they might need to improve.
The simplicity and clarity of this approach was accepted and respected by all who were involved. It enabled employees to see career pathways and motivated them to progress, often increasing employee retention in an area known for skill shortages.
There was also a recognition that “Expert” level was only needed by very few people in specialist roles. Shell call this 4th level “Mastery” in their competence frameworks and again there is recognition that some people may aspire to that and develop their career in a technical specialism, whereas others might want to develop their behavioural competencies to develop their career in supervisory or management roles. The breadth and depth of their competence against both behavioural and technical areas enabled employees to consider a career path that made best use of their talent.
Behaviours
We generally refer to behaviours as “competencies” to differentiate them from technical skills as “competences”.
Across an organisation there may be many specialist areas, these tend to get described as “job families”. A Job Family could be the accounts department, where employees share knowledge and skills around the finance and administration of the business, invoicing, overheads and the production of management accounts. It may also be HR, Project Management, Production, IT, Engineering, etc. In each job family there will be jobs at different levels of seniority. Each job family will have its own set of technical competences.
Most organisations recognise this, but prefer to develop a single set of behavioural competencies. Why is that? The main reason is to make the behavioural framework generic across the whole business. Organisations that have a set of values, a mission statement etc like to have that reflected in their behavioural competencies.
Over the last 30 years I have built many behavioural frameworks and I feel that they work best when driven by the organisation’s values. Best practice suggests that there should be no more than 12 behaviours in the framework, although some organisations like to have a separate framework for more senior levels of management, or may just separate “leadership” as a key behaviour worthy of its own framework.
The advantages of a single behavioural framework across all job families are significant. Everyone is encouraged to demonstrate the values of the organisation in using a behaviour. “Communication” for instance can be described with behavioural indicators at increasing levels of competency which encourage exemplary behaviour. It may be as simple as employees in customer support being encouraged to be friendly, polite and helpful. At a more senior level it may require line managers to explain and encourage employees to understand the organisation’s strategy and their role within it. So, while we wouldn’t expect everyone to have the same level of behavioural competency, we can see how it can be applied at different levels of seniority across all job families.
‘So, while we wouldn’t expect everyone to have the same level of behavioural competency, we can see how it can be applied at different levels of seniority across all job families.’
Trevor Dawes, OPL Chairman
A single framework opens up the possibility of recognising potential talent. An employee working in one part of the business may have the right mix of behaviours to work in a completely different part of the business. One very successful organisation we work with has found it very useful to start new employees in customer support, where they learn very quickly about the needs and difficulties of their customers. The employee may later work in a different department, perhaps better suited to their abilities, but all will have a really in-depth understanding of what effect their work has on the end customer.
So, a competency framework that focuses on behaviours can set the right tone for employees in an organisation. It can also allow management to spot talent and move employees to roles better suited to their abilities. It is often easier to acquire new knowledge and skills working in a different department than it is to change our behaviours. Behaviours need time, experience and practice to fully mature.
An example of a Behavioural Competency framework created by OPL is below:
You can see the detail of one of the Behavioural Competencies below:
A former colleague of mine used to say “people are recruited for their skills, but may be sacked for their subsequent behaviours”. Behaviours do take time to change, but at least with a competency framework you have behavioural indicators at each level, so you can observe evidence of these behaviours in an employee, allowing you a measured and sure way of identifying their strengths and development areas.
As a final thought on this area. Do you feel that your organisation has a “glass ceiling”, or maybe “glass walls”, that prevent talent rising or moving to other areas where their talents will thrive. I often hear about organisations where employees feel there are “silos”, where it is difficult to develop, escape or move on. This thought will be expanded further in my second blog on Talent.
Capability
This is another area where people often regard “competence” and “capability” as being the same thing.
For us at OPL, working with clients who often want deep granularity of detail to develop, assess and accredit their employees, we use capability to reflect the employee’s work experience.
As part of the data we collect in our systems, experience is a key element. You would rarely recruit someone to a senior role if they did not have relevant experience, so why not capture and quantify employee experience as part of your development process? It’s like building an online CV, but with great software at your disposal, why not capture the data so that it evidences the employee’s experience of complex situations, the magnitude of the problems they have overcome and the impact of their work. There will be several factors that contribute to the value that employee creates though their work. Software allows us to quantify and calibrate these factors so that they can be “scored”, in a similar way to how we score or rate ourselves against a competency framework.
The benefits of such an approach are plain to see. As employees gain experience their skills can be channelled to greater challenges, delivering more value to their employers. In a searchable database, as we have created for our clients at OPL, it’s possible to identify suitable talented employees to tackle new projects, new opportunities, new deals, build new business areas and exploit the potential of new projects.
In our work with Shell Academies “capability” is a major factor in assessing the overall merit of an employee.
An example of the level of detail the OPL system provides about employee experience is below, this is a summary page.
Of course static data, like qualifications, degrees, training courses, etc. that might be relevant on a CV are captured. However, they are not dynamic like experience and “capability”. So our system allows employees to capture evidence of their capability in a dynamic manner on the database. As soon as they have completed a project, or deal, or significant event, it can be added to their portfolio of evidence of their capability.
The employee is encouraged to build evidence of their competency and capability as part of their ongoing role. After a period of time (maybe as much as seven or even ten years) they may have enough evidence, in their line manager’s view, to put themselves forward for the next level of accreditation. With their line managers recommendation their evidence is passed to experienced assessors to review, perhaps ask for changes or further supporting evidence, before recommending the employee for the award of the next level of accreditation. As you would expect, assessments at higher levels of accreditation are passed to a panel of senior experts for review.
At each increasing level of accreditation the employee is considered for readiness to take on even larger challenges. As the employee matures in their experience they are asked if they are willing to share their expertise and experience with their community. If they agree they can become coaches or mentors for more junior employees, sharing their story and experiences to help the next generation. This helps create confidence and support in their community, improves the quality of new employees and underpins the ethos of Shell’s Academy approach to the development of talent.
The level of detail that Shell capture on our software about an employee’s experience is exemplary and often extends to 30 A4 pages or more, fortunately the software provides a one page overview with key points and highlights. Recently Shell were able to persuade the Association for Project Management (APM) to accept Level 2 of their Project Academy development and accreditation process as sufficient evidence to fast track Shell candidates for the APM’s Chartered standard (ChPP). More than 300 Shell employees have taken this route to achieve recognition at Chartered Project Professional level. No other organisation has yet achieved this level of accreditation with the APM.
‘More than 300 Shell employees have taken this route to achieve recognition at Chartered Project Professional level. No other organisation has yet achieved this level of accreditation with the APM.’
Trevor Dawes, OPL Chairman
Summary
It’s clear that capturing detailed evidence of capability, experience, competence, development, accreditations and qualifications for employees that are valuable to your organisation is hugely important, especially if these people play a significant role in delivering value in your business.
Engaging employees in capturing their data, reviewing it with their line manager, mentor or coach, is a first step in getting them to proactively develop their talents to make themselves ready for career opportunities that may come their way. Employees will have confidence in their abilities and will actively seek opportunities to prove themselves in their work, knowing it will be recognised. The outcome for the employer is very significant too. Engaged and capable employees will deliver high value to their business. They will see opportunities for cost savings and efficiency, will generate innovations, deliver projects more effectively and create profits for businesses.
‘The outcome for the employer is very significant too. Engaged and capable employees will deliver high value to their business.’
Trevor Dawes, OPL Chairman
The risk may be that they will defect to another organisation where they will be better rewarded, but maybe that is where you will need to think more widely about how you manage your talent. This is a theme I will return to in my next blog.
Would you like to know more about how OPL can help your organisation? If so, please do make contact. We’d love to hear from you!
Pick up the phone today and call us on 01455 550732 or email us on info@onlineprofiling.com
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