Competency Mapping

This is Competency era and a significant shift towards Competency Based

Organization has been observed. People and their competencies have become
the most significant factors that give a competitive edge to any corporation. HR
Professionals and Line Managers can contribute a great deal to develop
competency-based organizations.

Any underlying characteristic required for performing a given task, activity or role
successfully can be considered as competency. Competency may take the
following forms:

Knowledge
Attitude
Skill
Other characteristics of an individual including

Motives
Values
Traits
Self Concept etc.

With changing business scenario and new challenges emerging in the competitive
world, successful performance in any job/task has taken a critical place, for
organizational success. Competency mapping is one such process that helps in
identifying and mapping competencies required for successful performance in a
particular role. Competency mapping and assessment has gained paramount
importance in organizations, for keeping people development strategies and
processes in sync with organizational growth & objectives and maximizing the
utilization of human potential.

Creating competency based culture and systems in organizations are

the need of the hour. This creates a demand for HR professionals to
have specialized skills and have a continuous up-gradation of
knowledge.
Competency-based performance management processes
are becoming more prevalent in many organizations, but they are
particularly appropriate for organizations where there are:

Uncertain environments
Qualitative/process service jobs
Self-managed teams
Developmental jobs
Changing organizations
Is your company’s selection procedure competency based?
Does your company have a Competency oriented induction?
Are your training needs identified through Competency gaps?
Does your company have attrition problem due to mismatch of people with the
roles they perform?
Does your company have a list of Competencies required for various roles in
the organization?
Are the Core Competencies identified for your Organisation?

If the above statement holds true for your organization, your company can be
called a Competency Based Organization.

If your HR person does not have competencies to competency mapping, then get
him or her to acquire on an emergency basis and build a competency-based
organization. The future success of Organizations and people depends on how
competent they are - Obvious. There is no alternative to competency mapping.

In any case to check how ready you, or your organization, are for competency
mapping, you may use the following questionnaire:

QUESTIONNAIRE

How ready is your organisation to go in for Competency Mapping or getting

a good ROI on it?

Use this 3 point scale:

YES = 2 DOUBTFULL = 1 NO = 0
Are you in a business where there is high competition for talented people in
market place?
Has your organization experienced any set backs in the recent past due to
lack of competent people?
 Has your organization missed any business opportunities in the recent past
due to lack of competent people to handle any one or more functions or
territories or lines of business etc?
Does your top management believe that competencies can be developed
through continuous effort and interventions?
Is your top management willing to invest time and effort in building
competencies of your employees on a continuous basis?
Does your top management believe in building a competency - based
organization?
Do you (intend to), recruit people on the basis of competencies needed to
perform each job?
Do you or your organization intend to coach employees for future careers in
your own organization or Do you already have a competency based coaching
scheme?
Do you have well laid out career paths (or intend to improve existing)?
Does your top management believe that the success of your organization
depends on having competent managers?
Have you suffered any draw backs, profit, production, marketing, customer
etc. losses, share market down turns etc. due to turn over or people at the
top?
Is your training based on scientific, or at least systematic, identification of
competency gaps and competency needs?
Does your performance appraisal have a measure of competencies
separately for each individual level or function or group of jobs (top, middle,
R&D etc.)?
Does promotion (or promotion policy) in your organization require some form
of competency assessment?
Does your organization have adequate avenues to recognize and retain
people, other than promotions?
Does your top management believe in using multi-rater assessment or 360
degree feedback for employee development?
Is the teamwork in your organization of high order? Are the top-level
managers capable of performing their integrating roles well (roles that link
one department to other, one function to another, one individual to another
and ensure synergy and teamwork; versus, interdepartmental friction, bad
equations between Heads of Departments, heavy/intense Power plays at top
levels?)
Does your organization value talent and excellence?
Is your organization good in execution of projects or idea’s, once decided,
rather than abandoning them in the middle?
Does your organization have a culture of using task forces and work groups
for various exercises/tasks/issues?
Does your organization encourage innovations and scientific ways of doing
things?
 Is your organization systems driven (values systems) rather than being
rampant with ad-hocism and convenience based decision-making?

TVRLS has been successful running the Certificate Program on Competency

Mapping for the last three years. In the last three years we have had participation
from 247 professionals.

Competency Mapping conducted in organizations like

Hutch Orange, GE Capital, Pricol, DS Group, TCS, Novell, HCL Technologies, O
& M, L & T, Help Age India, Cognizant Technologies, Cairn Energy India pvt.
Lupin Ltd., GAIL, L.G. Electronics India Ltd, Bharti Cellular, Thermax group,
Sandvik Asia, Mercuri Goldmann Pvt. Ltd., Exide Industries, Kochi Refineries,
Infosys, Royal Enfield, Patni Computer Systems, Visteon India, Tata Tea, NIIT,
IPCL, NALCO, Cadila Pharmaceuticals, Welspun India Ltd., Wockhardt ltd,
Edutech Middle-east LLC (Dubai), Birla Cellulosic, TATA AIG Insurance Company,
HDFC Standard Insurance Co. TATA Cummins, ONGC, Indian Rayon, Wyeth,
BPL Mobile Cellular, MICO, Philips, Power Grid Corporation, TATA Motors,
Siemens Ltd., Mahanagar Gas, Srilanka Telecom (Srilanka), Bharat Electronics,
IFFCO, Gati, HPCL, SBI Staff College, TNT, Action Aid India, Indo-German Social
Service, Idea Cellular, etc

Assessment Center
Assessment Centers (AC) are centers set up by an organization for periodic or
continuous assessment of the competencies required to perform current, future
likely or higher level jobs / roles / tasks. They are increasingly used to identify
high fliers or fast trackers and develop leaders/competencies for the future.

One of the ways in which AC has been extended while keeping its essential
methodology is in using assessments as a stimulus for all kinds of development
of the participants. This extension is available even if the primary aim is
selection/promotion. The collection of reliable information on strengths and
weaknesses is a valuable opportunity which can, with the small extra effort
needed, be turned into material to stimulate development. This has become
more important in current conditions where opportunities for promotion are less
numerous and many people who perform their jobs well needed to be
encouraged to see the future in terms of development without obvious
promotion.

There has been a trend towards using the term “Development Centre”, in place
of “Assessment Centre”. Often the change of emphasis has not actually been
very great, but there has been a gain in reduced anxiety – participants find the
term “development” more friendly and less threatening than “assessment”. If the
aim is genuinely directed towards the development of all participants then the
Development Centre title is justified and honest. If, however, there are mixed
aims, and some sponsoring managers are using the activity to select people
(positively and/or negatively), the title will be seen as the sham it actually is, and
the motivation to see it as an open opportunity for development will suffer.
Assessment Centers use trained assessors normally chosen from within the
corporation. They are trained through intensive "Assessor Training Programs".
They need to have mastered "observation" "recording" "classifying" and
"measurement" skills.

Assessment Centers use multiple methods like:

In-Basket Exercises
Role-plays
Psychometric Tests
Simulation Exercises
Leaderless and Leader-led Group Discussions
Case Studies
Biographic Behavioural Incident Interviews (BBII)
Simulated Incident and Assessment Technique (SIAD) etc.
TVRLS and ADCs
Chairman Dr. T. V Rao used the first known Assessment Center in India in
1974 to select and recruit a group of project leaders for Parishram (Gujarat).
Dr.Rao also is privileged to have worked with Dr.David McClelland of Harvard
University who is the founder of competency movement and McBer (now
known as HAY - McBer).
TVRLS has done competency mapping and helped in setting up ACs and
ADCs in ESCORTS, BPL, NTPC, SRF, RBI and ONGC. Besides modified
form of Assessment Centers have setup in many other corporations
TVRLS has trained over 150 top level Assessors in NTPC who in turn have
assessed over 800 Managers within a year

Check List For Implemening “ACs” Or “ADCs” In Your

Organisations
Do you want to promote competency culture in your organization?
 Do you want to assess how capable your managers are to perform various
leadership roles - at present and in future?
Do you want to identify high fliers at an early age and use them for
competitive advantage?
Do you want to ensure scientific selection in your talent acquisition?
Do you want to enhance your in- house capability in talent Acquisition and
management?
Perhaps Assessment Centers or Assessment & Development Centers is the
answer.

Performance Management System

Performance management system (PMS) is the heart of any " people
management " process in organization. Organizations exist to perform. If people
do not perform organizations don't survive. If people perform at their peak level
organization can compete and create waves.

Performance management systems if properly designed and implemented can

change the course of growth and pace of impact of organizations. In the past
organizations as well as the HR function have wasted a lot of time by wrongly
focusing on performance appraisals rather than performance management.

TVRLS takes a very broad, pragmatic view of performance management. For

TVRLS performance management involves - enhancing performance of:

Individuals
Dyads
Teams & SBUs
Entire organization
To TVRLS - Performance Management means:
Identifying the parameters of performance and stating them very clearly
Setting performance standards
Planning in participative ways where appropriate, performance of all
constituents
Identifying competencies and competency gaps that contribute/hinder to
performance
Planning performance development activities
Creating ownership
Recognizing and promoting performance culture
TVRLS specializes in documenting the performance management practices and
experiences from all over the world.
TVRLS provides consulting services in the following areas:
Designing PMS systems and strategies
Implementing performance management systems
Facilitating identification of KPAs, KRAs, tasks, responsibilities that for
starting points of PMS
Facilitating performance review discussions and working sessions (we send
trained facilitators to sit through these and provide facilitation)
Preparation of role directories as base for performance planning
Designing reward system
Advising on implementing, reviewing and redesigning performance
management systems
Integrating 360 degree feedback with performance appraisal systems
TVRLS and PMS

TVRLS has published a book and manual on performance management (see

Publications).

TVRLS has worked with large number of organizations in India in designing and
implementing performance management systems. These include organizations
in private and public sectors and MNCs.

These include: Titan, BEL, EID Parry, NOCIL, Colourchem, GSPL, GVFL, etc.
(see our client list for details)
TVRLS is an active promoter of performance management as a continuous process for competence building
commitment building and culture building rather than limiting it to appraisal

Career Development & Succession Planning

Career Planning

A career is the work a person does. Another definition of a career is the

sequence of jobs that an individual has held throughout his or her working
life. “Career Planning” therefore embraces a person’s entire life—the
spiritual, social, educational and vocational. Career Planning is the life-
long process a person goes through to learn about himself (his purpose,
personality, interests, skills and talents) develop a self- concept, learn
about careers, and work situations and then make a career choice based
on information gathered while developing coping and social skills. It also
includes the skills a person employs in finding and keeping the job that is
right for him or her.

A career is the sequence of jobs that an individual has held throughout his
or her working life. For example, during the course of a career, a person
may have held several jobs in the occupation of nursing. One job may
have been that of a surgical nurse. Each surgical nurse in a hospital holds
a particular position that consists of several related duties. These duties
might include preparing the operating room for surgery and monitoring the
patient’s vital signs during surgery. The duty of preparing the operating
room for surgery could include several tasks, such as sterilizing surgical
instruments, checking monitoring instruments to ensure that they are
working properly, and obtaining supplies of blood.

The major focus of Career Planning should be on matching personal

goals and opportunities that are realistically available. A term worth
defining is “Career Path”. A Career path is a flexible line of movement
through which an employee may move during employment with an
organization.
One can think of career planning as building bridges from one’s current
job/career to next job/career. Without the bridge, one may easily stumble
or lose direction, but with the bridge there is safety and direction.

Succession Planning

Succession Planning refers to the process of developing the second line

for taking up a higher role in the organization. This enables organizations
to rely on internal recruitments for various organizational roles. This also
ensures that the organization does not face a major disruption when any
of its executives move out of their existing roles due to various reasons. A
good succession planning system ensures smooth transition of a new
incumbent into the role when the previous role holder moves out of the
particular role in an organization.

The lack of succession planning has been identified as one of the most
important reasons why many first-generation family firms do not survive
their founders. Also, lack of succession planning at various levels within
the organization would necessitate recruiting outside talent which may
take time in induction process as well as adjusting to the organizational
culture. Developing internal talent is often a preferred option in many
organizations.

Matching Succession Planning, Individual Career Plans and

Organizational Career Management

Individual career plans must be matched with organizational career

management systems in order to address issues ranging from retention to
 employee satisfaction and performance management. The succession
planning system must be integrated with the organizational career
management system to ensure that second line employees can move into
higher roles. This would contribute to satisfying their career aspirations
while fulfilling organizational talent requirements.

TVRLS and Career/Succession Planning

TVRLS recommends a career and succession planning process based on

key competences, not job titles, to provide greater flexibility and a more
strategic and future focus. Organizations should identify the required
competencies for the various roles in the organizational hierarchy. The
use of a competency based approach provides information to aspiring
employees for developing relevant competencies and fulfill their career
aspirations. Evaluation methods such as Assessment and Development
Centers (ADCs), 360 DF help to identify and develop individuals with the
desired skills and talents to lead organizations into the future

ART AND SCIENCE OF COMPETENCY MAPPING

T. V. Rao
Chairman, TVRLS
Formerly Professor at IIMA and Founder National HRD Network

In good organisations competency mapping existed already. Traditionally HR

Directors and their top management have always paid attention to competencies
and incorporated them mostly in their appraisal systems. For example when
L&T, LIC or NDDB, NOCIL, HLL, Bharat Petroleum etc. revised their
Performance appraisal systems they focussed on the assessment of
competencies. Role analysis was done and role directories prepared by the
Indian Oil Corporation in mid eighties.
Competency mapping is important and is an essential exercise. Every well
managed firm should: have well defined roles and list of competencies required
to perform each role effectively. Such list should be used for recruitment,
performance management, promotions, placement and training needs
identification.

What is Competency?
Any underlying characteristic required when performing a given task, activity, or
role successfully can be considered as competency. Competency may take the
following forms: Knowledge, Attitude, Skill, Other characteristics of an
individual including: Motives, Values, Self concept etc.

Competencies may be grouped in to various areas. In classic article

published a few decades ago in Harvard Business Review Daniel Katz grouped
them under three areas which were later expanded in to the following four:
Technical. Managerial, Human and Conceptual. This is a convenience
classification and a given competency may fall into one or more areas and may
include more than one from. It is this combination that are labelled and
promoted by some firms as competency dictionaries. A competency dictionary
of a firm gives detailed descriptions of the competency language used by that
firm. It contains detailed explanations of the combinations of competencies
(technical, managerial, human and conceptual knowledge, attitudes and skills)
using their own language. For example Team work or Team Management
competency can be defined in terms of organization specific and level specific
behaviors for a given origination. At top levels it might mean in the case of one
organization ability identify utilize and synergize the contributions of a project
team and at another level it might mean ability to inspire and carry along the top
management team including diversity management. In competency mapping all
details of the behaviors (observable, specific, measurable etc.) to be shown by
the person occupying that role are specified.

History of Competencies
A team of Educationists lead by Benjamin Bloom in the USA in mid fifties laid
the foundation for identifying educational objectives and there by defining the
knowledge attitudes and skills needed to be developed in education. The task
force lead by Bloom took several years to make an exhaustive classification of
the educational objectives that were grouped under the cognitive domain.

David McClelland the famous Harvard Psychologist has pioneered the

competency movement across the world. His classic books on "Talent and
Society", "Achievement Motive", "The Achieving Society", "Motivating Economic
Achievement" and "Power the Inner Experience" brought out several new
dimensions of the competencies. These competencies exposed by McClelland
dealt with the affective domain in Bloom's terminology. The turning point for
competency movement is the article published in American Psychologist in 1973
by McClelland titled where in he presented data that traditional achievement and
intelligence scores may not be able to predict job success and what is required
is to profile the exact competencies required to perform a given job effectively
and measure them using a variety of tests. This article combined with the work
done by Douglas Brey and his associates at AT&T in the US where in they
presented evidence that competencies can be assessed through assessment
centers an on the job success can be predicted to some extent by the same has
laid foundation for popularization of the competency movement.

Later McBer a Consulting Firm founded by David McClelland and his

associate Berlew have specialized in mapping the competencies of
entrepreneurs and managers across the world. They even developed
a new and yet simple methodology called the Behavior Event
Interviewing (BEI) to map the competencies.
With increased recognition of the limitations performance appraisal in predicting
future performance potential appraisal got focused. And Assessment centers
became popular in seventies. The setting up an Assessment center was in
integral part of the HRD plan given to L&T by the IIMA professors as early as in
1975. L&T did competency mapping and could not start assessment centers
until much latter as it was not perceived as a priority area.

Competency mapping is the process of identification of the competencies

required to perform successfully a given job or role or a set of tasks at a given
point of time. It consists of breaking a given role or job into its constituent tasks
or activities and identifying the competencies (technical, managerial, behavioral,
conceptual knowledge, an attitudes, skills, etc.) needed to perform the same
successfully.

Competency assessment is the assessment of the extent to which a given

individual or a set of individuals possess these competencies required by a
given role or set of roles or levels of roles. Assessment centers use multiple
methods and multiple assessors to assess the competencies of a given
individual or a group of individuals. In order to enhance objectivity they use
trained assessors and multiple methods including psychometric tests, simulation
exercise, presentations, in-basket exercises, interviews, role-plays, group
discussions etc. The methods to be used depend on the nature of
competencies.

Who Identifies competencies?

Competencies can be identified by one of more of the following category of
people: Experts, HR Specialists, Job analysts, Psychologists, Industrial
Engineers etc. in consultation with: Line Managers, Current & Past Role holders,
Supervising Seniors, Reporting and Reviewing Officers, Internal Customers,
Subordinates of the role holders and Other role set members of the role (those
who have expectations from the role holder and who interact with him/her).

What Methodology is used?

The following methods are used in combination for competency mapping:
Interviews, Group work, Task Forces, Task Analysis workshops, Questionnaire,
Use of Job descriptions, Performance Appraisal Formats etc.

How are they Identified?

The process of identification is not very complex. Some of the methods are
given below:

1. Simply ask each person who is currently performing the role to list the tasks
to be performed by him one by one, and identify the Knowledge, Attitudes, and
Skills required to perform each of these. Consolidate the list. Present it to a role
set group or a special task force constituted for that role. Edit and Finalize.
2. Appoint a task force for each role. When the author worked with the Ministry
of Health in Indonesia a three day workshop was found to be sufficient to train
the local Health Province staff in competency mapping. This in spite of the
author having to work with groups of Indonesians who spoke only Bhasa
Indonesia.

What Language to Use?

Use Technical language for technical competencies. For example: knowledge of
hydraulics.

Use business language for business competencies. Example: Knowledge of

markets for watch business or Strategic thinking.

Use your own language or standard terms for Behavior competencies. Example:
Ability to Negotiate, Interpersonal sensitivity, Sales techniques. Too technical
and conceptual knowledge align to the organization and people may create
more problems than help

Who can do it?

Competency mapping is a task which can be done by many people. Now days
all Management schools and definitely those specializing in HR train the
students in competency mapping.

Any Masters in Management or Social Sciences or an Employee with Equivalent

Experience and Training can develop these competencies. Conceptual
Background and Understanding of the business is important. Familiarity with
Business, Organizations, Management and Behavioral Sciences is useful. HR
Managers, Management Graduates, Applied Psychologists are quite qualified to
do this. Most institutions specializing in HR train the candidates to do this.

Some Tips on How to do it?

The following are some of tips to do competency mapping at low cost:

Pick up a job or a role that is relatively well understood by all individuals in the
company. Work out for this role and give it as an illustration. For example Sales
Executive, Production Supervisor, Assistant HR Manager, Receptionist,
Transport Manager, PR Manager, etc. are known to all and easy to profile.
Work out competencies for this role if necessary with the help of job analysis
specialist or an internal member who has knowledge of competency mapping.
Prepare this as an illustration.

Circulate these others and ask various departments to do it on their own.

Circulate samples of competencies done by others
Illustrate knowledge, attitudes, skills, values etc.

Choose a sample that does not use jargons

Explain the purpose
Interview of past successful job holders helps
Current incumbent who are doing a good job along with their Reporting officers
is a good enough team in most cases.
Once prepared even on the basis of one or two individuals inputs circulate to
other role set members

ADC FOR HR MANAGERS

A two day open program on ‘Assessment Development Centre for

HR Managers’ was conducted by TVRLS in its premises at
Ahmedabad. Aspiring HR Managers attended the workshop from
various sectors of the industry such as Tata Motors, Times of India,
Thermax, Harsha Engineers etc.
The participants were put through various simulations including HR
knowledge tests, psychometric tests, in-basket exercises, group
discussions, case study presentations, biography behavior incident
interview (BBII) etc. The Center resulted in a development plan for
each of the participants that will help facilitate their development as
HR leaders.

This two day program comes as a first step to a series of workshops

in Assessment Centers for HR managers being planned by TVRLS
to help them assess where they stand in knowledge, attitudes and
skill base to be HR leaders.