Since mid-2021, I’ve been supporting a phased initiative to center my department’s talent management strategy on a competency framework.
While I was generally aware of it from previous experience as a manager and instructional designer, this project crystallized my understanding of the connection between talent management and competency frameworks. This post is my attempt to summarize what I’ve learned!
What is talent management?
Just as businesses and organizations have financial and administrative processes that keep the lights on, most also have processes for handling employee matters. “Talent management” encompasses most organizational processes related to people.
The processes range from recruiting and selecting employees, to supporting their learning and development (whether for new roles or career progression), to engaging them and retaining them over time.
These critical touchpoints influence the overall health of an organization.
Talent management is how employers recruit and develop a workforce that is as productive as possible and likely to stay with their organization long term. When implemented strategically, this process can help improve the overall performance of the business and ensure that it remains competitive.
ADP, 2023
With this in mind, it’s no surprise that talent management has been a priority to human resources managers for more than 15 years (Gurchiek, 2006).
What are competencies and competency frameworks?
At the risk of oversimplifying, competencies are what make up the skillset required to do your job.
The NIH provides a more detailed explanation:
Competencies are the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors that contribute to individual and organizational performance. Knowledge is information developed or learned through experience, study or investigation. Skill is the result of repeatedly applying knowledge or ability. Ability is an innate potential to perform mental and physical actions or tasks. Behavior is the observable reaction of an individual to a certain situation.
National Institutes of Health, 2023
While a competency may have a brief name, there is generally a description and set of observable behavioral examples associated with it. This is, essentially, the competency framework or model.
For example, according to a competency framework used at Emory University, an individual contributor who meets expectations in demonstrating their core competency of “Building Trust,” is someone who “behaves and expresses oneself in an open and honest manner” and “shares accurate information,” among other things (p. 5).
Looking for more examples? The state of Washington’s Office of Financial Management has a comprehensive guide of Competency Examples with Performance Statements, as does the Pierce County, Washington local government.
How do competency models support talent management?
Competency models support every dimension of talent management. In his article “Testing for Competence Rather than ‘Intelligence,’” psychologist David McClelland (1973) spurred the movement towards competency modeling by positing that testing someone based on real-life skills would be a better indicator of their future success than testing them based on intelligence, or what they know, alone.
Since then, many organizations have adopted competency models as the basis for their talent management processes. This helps to align the way an organization manages its greatest asset (its people) with its business strategy, especially in a volatile and uncertain environment. By focusing on competencies in terms of what it takes to be successful in a given role, businesses can remain agile and equip employees for future success.
Let’s revisit the competency framework used at Emory University for another example. One characteristic of a non-manager who meets expectations for the core competency of “Problem Solving” (p. 13) is that they’re “not discouraged by ambiguous situations” and “open to new ideas and processes,” as indicated under the “Meets Expectations” column in Figure 1 below.
On the same page, you’ll notice two other columns: “Unacceptable” and “Far Exceeds Expectations.”
Here are some scenarios where this type of information could factor into talent management:
- A manager observes someone from their team exhibiting behaviors listed under “Far Exceeds Expectations” consistently and decides to nominate that employee for promotion.
- A manager observes someone exhibiting behaviors deemed “Unacceptable” during a team event and refers back to the behavioral examples that meet or exceed expectations in an alignment conversation with that employee.
- A senior team member notes that a candidate demonstrates behaviors that exceed expectations during their screening interview. This may distinguish them from other candidates, depending on how critical the competency is to the job and their overall skill profile.
There are many other applications for competency modeling, of course!
How can you apply a competency framework in your organization?
In short, you’ll need to:
- Define the outcome(s) you want to see as a result of the initiative
- Identify a competency framework to apply, and the roles that will be affected by it
- Conduct internal research with subject matter experts to identify the core competencies associated with each role (as well as several levels of leadership, depending on the size of your organization)
- Evaluate how little or how much you may need (or want) to adjust your workflows to incorporate the research findings into talent management processes such as recruiting, onboarding, performance management, compensation and total rewards, and even the organizational design
- Execute on desired adjustments based on your findings
Looking for more details? Then check out How to apply a competency model (a case study), which provides a summary of my organization’s initiative to apply the Korn Ferry Leadership Architect™ competency framework.
