Guest bloggers Pat Zingheim and Jay Schuster are partners in Schuster-Zingheim and Associates Inc., a compensation and total rewards consulting firm founded in 1985. Jay and Pat are recognized within the HR community as compensation design thought leaders, best-seller authors and WorldatWork Keystone Award Winners. They recently presented a WorldatWork Webinar, "Trend Watch — Moving from Jobs to Competencies as the HR Foundation."
Nov. 12, 2009 — In our recent WorldatWork Webcast, we reviewed the results of a study of 20 organizations that successfully made the journey from jobs to competencies as the basis of human resource programs (see the two articles related to this topic from WorldatWork Journal and the former ACA Journal attached to this discussion). The Webcast discussed the results of the study, the pros and cons of competency-based human resources, the steps to developing competency-based compensation/HR programs including the business case, key concepts and how market data might be applied to competency-based pay.
The 20 organizations reported improved results from the transition to competencies and made the change based on a business case that suggested people and not jobs should be the focus of human resource strategies and program designs. In all instances the initial step was the selection of competencies that reflected the business goals of the organization and how employees help make the organization a success. The lead item in the change process was consistently a way to communicate, evaluate and develop talent based on competencies, including an assessment tool. Training, development, succession planning and all other employee programs focused on competencies first and not jobs. All but one organization used competencies in their pay system, but pay was not the first thought when considering competencies as a human resource priority. However, it made sense to these organizations and proved to be an effective tool for making the move to competencies more meaningful and understandable.
While a move to competencies may not be for everyone, the CEOs, COOs and other senior line and human resource executives in these organizations interviewed for the study believe it gets to the heart of linking employees with the organization in a competency-based, high-performance organizational model.
Is it right for every organization? We don't know. However, this study provides an interesting benchmark that might help many organizations engage talent more meaningfully than is possible through jobs and inanimate job descriptions.
If you are considering taking the leap into competencies, here are a couple of our thoughts about how to go about getting started:
Think strategically first. Can you develop a business case for using competencies as part of human resource management? Can you develop a business-focused competency model that you would like to communicate to your organization? Can you develop training, development, coaching and feedback tools focused on the core competencies of the workforce — especially the key workforce in your organization (i.e. for a medical-center: physicians, nurses and technical talent; for a scientific company: scientists and engineers; for an accounting firm: accountants)? If you can, than a competency strategy may fit your business model and make sense to consider.
Think tactics second: If competencies made business sense, all the "details," while important, can be addressed because programs that are consistent with the organization's business goals have proven to be able to deal with operational issues better than those that are not business driven. Issues of pricing a competency pay program, dealing with federal and state law, gaining employee acceptance and the like can be addressed (and have been effectively by all 20 study organizations) — but only if the basic idea of competencies as an element of human resource management makes sense to help the organization grow, attract the best people, serve customers and the community, and be innovative and creative.
We would be interested in your thoughts and comments as leaders in the world of compensation about this important new trend. We think it may hold the key to an exciting new way to ground HR programs on a solid business foundation.
E James Brennan, III Senior Associate Member Since: 4/19/1979 Comments: 406
This new way of thinking is already a reality in most of the world outside North America. The Europeans shake their heads at the American "contract-like" job description with its list of responsibilities, tasks and duties which employees cling to both as CYA boundaries and as an infinite ownership entitlement. Far too many of our US practices are driven and constrained by the bureaucracy necessary to administer our job construct which tends to draw more focus than the KSAs of the human incumbents who produce the work output results.
Please address how you can make competencies more central without losing sight of outcomes. Some may fear that shifting focus from the activities to the competencies may introduce subjectivity and create undue emphasis on potential at the sacrifice of actual results. For example, I think of competencies as personal capital carried by the incumbent but only applied via the context supplied by the enterprise's assignment (the job or role). Reassure us that the paradigm shift you predict as future best practice won't leave us assessing form rather than substance; most of us want no part of any approach that stresses theoretical capacity rather than actual reality. Evidence that those who have embraced the new view have thrived will be vital for general acceptance. Personally, I'm confident that was proven by the simple fact that all or most of the participants in your study found their new direction has been so dramatically empowering and directly responsible for indisputable improvements in productivity and profitability that they were unwilling to permit you to identify them lest their competitors discover their secret of success. That told me a lot.
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