What are Competency Frameworks and why are they important?
A Competency expresses a specific employee attribute in unique, standardised terms. Employee attributes include knowledge, tooling & equipment, experience, behaviours and leadership.
These attributes are then described across varying proficiency levels, each level having a clear, concise, and objective description. For example, the competency of Strategic Planning from SFIA (IT competency framework):
Strategic Planning competency
Description: The creation, iteration, and maintenance of a strategy in order to align organisational actions, plans and resources with business objectives and the development of plans to drive forward and execute that strategy. Working with stakeholders to communicate and embed strategic management via objectives, accountabilities, and monitoring of progress.
Level 1: Ensures that all stakeholders adhere to the strategic management approach and timetables. Collates information and creates reports and insights to support strategy management processes. Develops and communicates plans to drive forward the strategy. Contributes to the development of policies, standards and guidelines for strategy development and planning.
Level 2: Sets policies, standards, and guidelines for how the organisation conducts strategy development and planning. Leads and manages the creation or review of a strategy which meets the requirements of the business. Develops, communicates, implements, and reviews the processes which ensure that the strategic management is embedded in the management and operational plans of the organisation.
Level 3: Leads the definition, implementation, and communication of the organisation’s strategic management framework and directs the creation and review of a strategy and plans to support the strategic requirements of the business.
A collection of competencies, often aligned with a profession or industry vertical, is called a competency framework. Most industries and professions have an established competency framework foundation, comprised of industry luminaries, who have documented the key competencies/skills relevant to roles within their respective industry/profession. Some of these industries include:
How do competency frameworks optimise organisational efficiencies?
Competency frameworks, be they industry standard frameworks or created for an organisation’s specific needs, deliver organisation-wide consistency across the entire employee lifecycle, ensuring all employees are benchmarked against a consistent language that promotes fair and objective assessment. Using a data driven approach across recruitment, performance reviews, learning and development prioritisation and career planning has countless benefits that improve organisational efficiencies and productivity.
Taking a closer look at the recruitment process, no longer do organisations need to rely on wordy based position descriptions that are inherently subjective. The implementation of a competency framework allows organisations to clearly define what is required by any given role, and then compare candidates on an objective and fair manner.
Research indicates that after implementing a competency-based selection process staff turnover can drop as much as 20% according to Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Optimising Organisation Capability with data driven gap analysis
Historically skills gap analysis has been a tedious process, given the ambiguity and subjectiveness around the typical measures used for current vs desired state. Using a Competency based approach for performance review processes allows for data driven gap analysis at the individual, team, department or entire enterprise level.
According to the World Economic Forum’s report The Future of Jobs, by 2022 no less than 54% of all workers will need to update or replace their competencies.
This is where the use competency frameworks proves invaluable, as the resulting reporting can provide senior leaders with key decision support on where to focus learning & development activities in order to reskill or upskill the current workforce. Data driven gap analysis can also be used to drive future recruitment in areas where reskilling may not be practical.
The benefits of competency frameworks for organisations are gleamingly obvious but there are also advantages for the individual. By creating mechanisms for individuals to self-assess, they can compare their current skill set to future aspirational roles within the organisation. This allows career pathways to be clearly defined and provides guidance around areas of improvement.
I hope this article has assisted you in understanding competency frameworks are and how they could assist your organisation.
Regards Anthony
P.S. If you would like some more advice regarding how our software can assist your organisation automate the implementation of competency framework, please get in touch for a free demonstration.
