27/5/21 SESSION 1

Competency mapping is the process of identifying the specific skills, knowledge, abilities, and
behaviours required to operate effectively in a specific trade, profession, or job
position. Competency maps are often referred to as competency profiles or skills profiles.

Here experience brings the proficiency in the required role. You would call something as a
competency only if it seems to be causal i.e. more you have a competency, then better your
performance, if you thing that is true then it is a performance. There is difference between a
competency & an organizational value like integrity, excellence oriented, but if sense of excellence is
leading to performance. A personality should be relevant for the organization & the role required.

The Iceberg Metaphor:

- Like an iceberg, human competencies could also be equated like an iceberg, saying that you have
knowledge, skill which are more visible i.e. these would show in terms of an iceberg metaphor, in
competency parlance we would say the ease with it can be assessed & measured, so in iceberg we
are saying visibility, here we are taking about measurability.
- If we want to assess a person who is not in HR, has expertise in some other field, but wants to
move into HR, so how can we assess the person – through a questioning technique. Secondly if
within HR the candidate is interested in entering L&D – So skills like communication, presentation
skill are required for the same. SO how will we test such skill – may be by asking the candidate to
present something. And based on the presentation the candidate comes out in flying colors. So with
this information would we be able to conclude the she would in the long run turn out to be a good
trainer. Not necessarily,
- What are the few most important attitude related parameters to become a trainer?
i) Learning orientation, interpersonal skills, connect with audience,
ii) Empathy in terms of thinking of what audience expect, conscious about what audience needs is.
iii) Openness to ideas
iv) Passion arising out of the belief that people can be developed
v) Patience: For doing repetitive work with the same level of interest using updated techniques.

On the basis of above parameters, how can the candidate be assessed?

When asked about how knowledge or skill could be measured, we can come up with several ways to
assess it, but as we go down the iceberg to the parameters that are underlying at the bottom the
measurability reduces. Apart from measurability, changeability or developability also reduces.
Meaning you can easily acquire new knowledge with some efforts you can also acquire new skills.
But when it comes to changing our attitude, values, traits, etc it is easier said than done. It could be
developed but not at ease with which we can change our enhanced knowledge or skills. Thus,
measurability & changeability both reduces.

Based on the discussion, what is the simple implication for a recruitment & selection profession?
- Professionals should select for attitude & train for skills.
- When you should recruit people, one should look at the underlying qualities or the submerged part
of the iceberg, so attitude, value, etc. related competencies should be measured. just because it’s
not easy to measure, it does not mean that we should ignore that. Just because it is easy to measure
knowledge & skill, those 2 only cannot be the criteria for assessment.

Thus, through competencies, we are trying to experiment with different approaches to

measurement, so that we can increase the validity of the measurement process.
During campus recruitment, we professionals usually recruit can candidate on the basis of criteria’s
like Aptitude, marks, scoring or basis of evaluation system in the colleges. Thus through this process
you are recruiting so called topper from the available pool. Many a times, some 5 years down the
line we observe that these toppers could turn into a mediocre performer or sometimes an average
scorer could turn out to be an outstanding performer. Though it not a line on the stone, it is just
there is no one to one relationship between your academic performance & you’re on the job
performance because these are influenced by different set of factors. So when you are recruiting for
the organization as against the tip of the iceberg or the mark, etc. it’s important that we clearly
understand what are the underlying qualities for performance in an organization & try & measure
those qualities as much as possible, our attempt should be striving to make those measurements
more accurate.

Given our evaluation mechanism, it is not necessary that those key qualities that the organization
requires, would have reflected in terms of the marks in the exam. There is a basic level of cognitive
ability that are require for anyone to perform. This could be one of the filtering mechanisms to
ensure that people do have those basic CC. But those CC will not make you a differentiating person,
at the end of the day these differentiating qualities will come from deeper qualities. Of course, there
could be few exceptions in terms of few roles. Thus, these examination systems help us to decide
that basic CC are present, but that does not confirm that the person will be a performer.

Segregation of the Iceberg:

The top of the iceberg in this context was called as Professional knowledge & skills areas, the bottom
part as competency, but to avoid the complexity, people started calling all these as competencies &
made the distinction as the top as the technical/ functional competency & the bottom as the
behavioral competency. The pinnacle of the competency is the demonstrated behavior. Anything
that is observable is the behavior, these behaviors are the manifestation of the underlying qualities.
Thus when we look at competencies we express them in terms of behavioral indicators.

We already said when we go down things becomes difficult for us to change & develop. For e.g. an
org considers achievement orientation as an imp. competency, & they have 5000 employees out of
which 1000 are managerial cadre & org. wants to put everyone through this competency parameter.
They found only 200 of them have reasonable degree of this achievement orientation, this comes in
the bottom part of the iceberg. We know that whatever is in the bottom part is difficult to measure.
So we cannot say the left over 800 people are not worth. It can’t be. Though it is difficult for us to
change a person who is not an achievement oriented (personality trait) person to become an
achievement oriented. But it will not be that difficult for us to support a person in terms of imbibing
some of the behaviors related to achievement orientation. What leads to performance are the
behaviors exhibited by the person that is leading to performance.

HOW will a person imbibe such behaviors in an organization?

- First the person is clear about what are those behavior.
- Person should also get a conducive atmosphere in the org. like a supporting boss, colleagues, etc.
- When a person manifests those behaviors & performs consistently well. then the person should be
rewarded.
These are the qualities difficult to change because these are to do with personality. But it doesn’t
mean that it prevents the person from engaging in those related behavior. Therefore, organizations
competency model would be focusing more on behavior, so that is why it’s called ‘Behavioral
Indicators’. These should be ‘culturally relevant’, it could differ from culture to culture of an org.

Definition of competency:
Competencies are the underlying characteristics of an individual, that are causally related to superior
performance: There are 3 parts to it:
i) Underlying characteristics: Considering iceberg metaphor, the submerged part that includes
characteristics like attitudes, motives, etc.
ii) Casual relationships: If you have those underlying characteristics qualities, it would cause certain
things.
iii) Superior performance: Cause of certain things like the superior performances.

Considering above example, what could be Superior performance parameter of a trainer:

We can apply the Kirk Patrick model:
- Trainees are satisfied
- Trainees have learned what is being trained
- Trainees can implement the training, implementation has resulted in some improvement in output,
etc.

What could be the parameters for a sales manager:

- New customers generation/ no. of repeat customers
- Feedback from the customers
- Revenue generated

SESSION 2

Basic terms & terminology:

i) Competency Modelling: If an org is moving towards competency-based HR, it must know what are
the kind of competencies that are required in the org. Thus, the process of identifying the
competencies in the org. is called CM (to translate strategy into result, whether your current set of
people are having these qualities are or not it is immaterial, if these are the objectives & strategy
what kind of people are required to best achieve those). We need to see what are the qualities
required among the people to effectively translate the strategy to result. This process is called the
modelling process. Here there are two approaches:
a) Strategy Focused: If we look at the strategy of the org. as differentiation Vs Cost leadership for
example. Like differentiation means how does it diff from rest of the org. like the people working in
the organization having qualities like specialized knowledge, risk taking, agility, flexibility, etc.
Whereas in case of cost leadership qualities required in people would be cost consciousness, process
innovation, spotting & ceasing opportunity. If the competency model that you are developing is
coming from the strategy of the org then your model is vertically aligned. Having put this model
which vertically aligned then you have to ensure that your HR practices are aligned around the
model. If you have certain key competencies how your recruitment & selection process is aligned
with that so that at the end of the selection the people who get to the org. have these critical
qualities in them. After they join, you focus on them during performance appraisal, your appraisal
should have certain attributes that are taken from the competency model & based on where they
stand on this, your T&D focus should be on those competencies that are important for the
organization. Also, could be linked with Succession planning, rewards, etc. Thus, leading to
integration of HR practices.
Thus, if the competency model is vertically aligned & the HR processes are horizontally aligned
what the HR is doing is there is a constant supply of talent which is required to translate the
strategy into outcome. HR is playing the role of Strategic Partner Role because it is providing org
consistently with talent through recruitment, developing them to translate the strategy to result.
Strategy focused competency will be more role specific, but each role would also require technical
role specific competency.
b) Superior Performance Focused: Performance is also normally distributed. Behavioral events
interview is a critical incident technique with some principles of Thematic Apperception Test TAT. You
do BEI with star & above average category of people. Interviewers ideally would not know who are
the star or who are the above average people i.e. all of them are successful people. They have
handled a situation successfully, but you can also include failure incident to. When you are looking
at each of these incidences you look at –
i) what events that led to that critical incidence (background) &
ii) what actually happened during that incidence (in terms of thought/ thinking process/ feelings/
behavior), and
iii) lastly the outcome.

Then come the TAT process, a person is shown a picture & asked to look at the picture for some
time & then expected to write a story. Story has certain stages –
i) what seems to have led to what you are seeing in the picture/ what preceded it,
ii) what is actually happening now and
iii) what probably could happen in the future.

In TAT it is work of imagination, when you are writing that story you are projecting your unconscious
on to that story, so if I were to show the picture to 150 people, I will get 150 different stories
because each one of you have a unique subconscious. Whereas in critical incident you are actually
dealing with something that happened.

After getting the stories, you get different interview transcript, after completing all the interviews
you can separate the transcripts on the basis of average performers & superior performers
transcripts. After going through these, you will get examples of behaviors of what the person did/
how he or she felt/ how the person handled & these are known as ‘behavioral codes’. From the
interview transcripts you identify as many behavioral codes like thinking/ feeling/ done/ felt, etc. all
can be considered as code. A person should have a discretion in doing a task, not because someone’s
boss asked him/ her to do. Then you segregate behaviors into clusters of superior category & some
into above average category.

a) When you compare these clusters, you will observe that there are certain clusters in the superior
category are absent in the AA category or if present they are present in a lesser degree. So this is
called as Differentiating competency.

b) Threshold competency: Then there could be other competencies which are more or less in both
categories

For e.g. In case of a Trainer, other things being constant, a trainer who has X level of communication
skill may have certain level of performance, another trainer with 2X level of communication skills
level of performance will be correspondingly better, 3X level of skills probably performance is still
better. Thus, in case of a trainer communication is more of an example of a differentiating
competency. If we consider a telephone operator in this case, communication is more like a
threshold that you need communication at certain level but beyond certain level it is not going to
make much different.

So when you look at C. Model, you concentrate on differentiating competencies, because the
definition of competency say ‘Casually related’, so casual means more the better, secondly your C.
Model cannot have to many competencies, you need to focus on those few competencies that
differentiates the star people from the above average. C. Model should be aspirational, when large
majority of people doesn’t possess it then it will not be aspirational. So idea is rest of the
organization should try to move towards the right hand side i.e. towards the qualities of star.
Complete movement would never happen but even if there is a movement of one std deviation then
it will be considered as having tremendous implication for productivity.

ii) Competency Mapping: Once you put in place the framework, then we see if this the requirement
where are the people. We need to assess the people, assessment would be based on required
competency which is already in place based on modelling, so that assessment of people who are
occupying different roles would be the mapping process. One can use various approaches to
mapping. Mapping would involve actual assessment of people against the requirement & identifying
the requirement is part of modeling. In case of the gaps are delt with considering the objective of
the task, for e.g., in terms of recruitment when you map someone, at the point your objective is
whether to select or not. Once the person is inside the organization probably you map & find there
are gaps then you put the person on a developmental track, then as part of promotion if there are
gaps then you decide not to promote the person.

Case Study - UNILEVER:

First step that the organization took was Identifying the need for a competency model for 2 purpose:
i) If you know why it is imp. you can convince the mgt.
ii) You can also create certain metrices, so that you can evaluate how this intervention is meeting the
objectives or not

What were the objectives:

- Promotability: How their managers are future ready, its about potential that is were the behavioral
competencies come
- Professionalism: Professional knowledge required to perform the role
A universal CM, for a uniform culture it is imp, all the people are evaluated on same set of qualities
then it would make the process easier.
Cross functional mobility: If you have same yardstick to evaluate people then that mobility becomes
easier.

Certain guidelines:
- Non bureaucratic
- Easy to use
- Acceptable to all
- They did the board level interview & they were asked what kind of people would be successful in
the scenario.
- Language should be culturally neutrally
- If you have people to be successful, then it becomes easier for the org. to accept that, that it has
been proven & acceptable, could be imbibed.

If you have to manage something should be able to measured, you should have clarity how to
measure it.

Visionary interview: Board were interviewed for understanding the strategy is the same with that of
the people who are designing the model.
 Date: 3/5/21 SESSION 3

Recap:
Competencies , defined competencies,basic terms- mapping and modeling, literacy, vertical &
horizontal alignment, threshold, differentiating,
Case study if uniliver- how they developed Comp and application

Case Summary -Org made business case to for going through this intervention which is competency
based HR.They said competition is increasing , the environment was getting turbulent and its
important thet Hr function focuses on if the current competencies or skills is capable to keep the
organization of meeting with the challenges due to competition . failing communism. Different
function,units, vertical would have approached it in different manner and HR decided to relook at
the competencies of the people to prepare the organization to take on the competition and they
decided competency is the way forward to help the org. Focus and guidelines that had to be adhered
to while designing was on 1) professionalism and promotability which is primarily the behavioral
competency as well as functional competencies .The wanted to create a competency model which
encompasses the behavioral competencies and professional knowledge and skill area. They also
decided if they were taking this intervention it should fulfill certain requirement 1) what ever they
develop should be futuristic and doesn’t apply to current scenario but goes beyond as its preparing
the org to prepare for future. 2) Acceptability should be there across organization i.e uniform
competency model which is called universal competency model which is applied to the length and
breadth of the org . 3) What ever developed should be non bieurocratic and easy to use as the
success of this is when the line people are able to appreciate ,accept it and use it with ease
4)Culturally neutral-everyone in organization should be able to understand no matter where they
are 5) if you have to manage anything, It should be measurable

They interviewed people and used strategy focused and superior performance focused and board of
director people were interviewed and these interviews are called visional interviews because they
are visionaries , strategy of the org, strategic changes .

Models to make competency models

Creating a learning Environment