Is Competency Development Still Important?

In the early 90s, competencies became mainstream and were often developed by companies in order to guide training. Many times, companies built competency models for what were (then) called ‘soft skills.’ In 1993, Lyle and Signe Spencer published their book, Competence at Work: Models for Superior Performance. Their book summarized 20 years of research on using the McClelland/McBer job competence assessment (JCA) which told us that the most ‘state of the art’ human resource management applications benefited from leveraging job competencies. Prior to this, most competency development work was reserved for the military or in highly technical roles subject to compliance requirements. In the decades since, many organizations expanded their use of competencies as a talent development tool, but now we need to ask—are they as useful as they once were?

Importance to Talent Development Efforts

Competencies are very helpful to Talent Development efforts—it’s part of why competency development was taken on in such a wide-spread way. Having defined and specific competencies are especially helpful to those efforts. For instance, competencies can:

• Provide the basis for measurement and evaluation of individual and group skill-gaps and needs. When competencies are behavioral and observable, it’s easier to evaluate how well they are being used. If competency assessments are behavioral, assessments are much more accurate than those without behaviors. Likewise, off-the-shelf assessments are more reliable in measuring competencies when those assessments are mapped to behaviors.
• Clarify where to invest limited development time and budget. With limited time, budget and attention, talent development professionals are constantly battling to prioritize their projects. A competency development initiative should result in building competencies that are prioritized. Not every skill and behavior carries the same weight. When prioritizing, consider factors such as, “How difficult is it for someone to learn this competency?” and “How frequently does someone in this role use this competency?” By prioritizing competencies as part of competency development, talent professionals know where to focus.

Importance to Talent Management Efforts

Competency development can also support talent and performance management efforts. Competencies in talent management can:

• Be the basis of tools used to recruit and select talent. With well-defined competencies, hiring leaders can plan their interviews around important competencies. Structured interview guides can be set up in advance for high turnover or critical roles to help ensure consistent, relevant data-gathering by interview teams.
• Establish clear guidelines on the standards and skills that are needed for success in a particular role. If the competency development process results in having role-specific rather than generic competencies, they can be the basis for defining expectations. For example, while having more generic leadership competencies provides some value, the expectations and skills needed for a front-line manufacturing supervisor are vastly different than for a mid-level sales manager. Conducting a competency development initiative to differentiate between those two roles’ competencies would uncover uniqueness that can help with managing development for both.

Competency development efforts continue to be important and relevant for these and other reasons.

A Caution: To Remain Relevant, Revisit Competency Development

In today’s ever-changing and volatile environment, competencies cannot be static. Some even say that there are competencies that are universally needed because of this volatility. (Read Dancing at the Edge: Competence, Culture and Organization in the 21st Century by Maureen O’Hara and Graham Leicester for more about that.) Talent development professionals should revisit and re-prioritize competency models to keep them relevant and useful. The process of re-examining competency models has value—even if ultimately the competencies don’t change. This is because a well-run competency development process:

• Builds buy in and support of the competencies from key stakeholders.
• Creates agreement and alignment of processes and roles.
• Reduces the risk of poor adoption of competencies.
• Draws attention to expectations that may need reinforcement.

Competency development and re-validation does not need to be an overwhelming and lengthy project. It is possible to use a robust, yet streamlined process that nets prioritized, behavioral competencies. To answer the question we first asked, ‘are they as useful as they once were?’ the answer is Yes! Keeping competencies relevant is worth the effort; they remain important for those in talent development and talent management roles and our organizations as a whole.