Organisations are expected to meet their objectives efficiently, and be ready for the new challenges the market could throw. To achieve that they bank on competent trained employees.
Competency benchmarking and gap analysis help in recruiting right candidate, succession planning, growth and higher retention of qualified talent. They focus on development plans to decrease the bridge the gap of talent/ skill in a role against what the organisation can pick by hiring. Unfortunately, most organisations have no competency gap measurement.
Properly mapped competency’s status and gaps identify skill sets, knowledge, behaviour, functional expertise and capabilities needed in short or long-term. Organisations then use effective processes like mentoring, training, buddy, e-training and other to bridge the gap at an individual or group basis.
Organisations looking at competencies must differentiate between the ‘required competency’ at the hiring level which can be proved by certificate and experience and ‘acquired competency’ which may need to be demonstrated. Both are essential for proper results.
In case of a regular formal competency-based training system, the recruiter can identify skill sets that can be enhanced post-recruitment and concentrate more on the ‘required competencies. Competency gap analysis sounds complicated and time-consuming, but it is simple and quick to administer. Most of the competency gap analysis at a department and location level can be done in two days. And the impact is long term.
The four steps for an elementary competency gap analysis are.
- Competency assessment; determining the exact skill sets for the job.
- Creating a competency map for the role.
- Using the competency map as the foundation the employees should self-analysis and rank themselves. They must share why they have chosen the rating they have given and how have they demonstrated their expertise level within the competency area.
- Senior employees should verify, tweak or rank the employee on the competency map.
This provides a good foundation to developing a formal training module. Planned training not only overcomes the barriers within organisations but also enhances training ROI.
Competency mapping leads to a skill / functional and behavioral checklist. It is a useful tool at the recruitment level. It can be used to create benchmark training programmes customised for the organisation. Such standards and benchmark are used to identifying employees ready for the next level.
Competency gap analysis defines skill set benchmarks across levels. The benefit of training is further amplified by measuring training impact on pre-agreed success matrices. This iterative process fine tunes the competency map and gap analysis of the organization.
To do so, organisations define the competency level at every stage along the three dimensions of Competency, Proficiency and Context. For example, ‘Actionable B2B Ideation’ or ‘Exemplary Business Development Presentation’ which has the context if ‘B2B’ or ‘Business development’ is far more focused and measurable than ‘Ideation’ or ‘Presentation’. Usually, organisations fail to record the context. Properly done, it is transparent and easy to understand. It motivates the employees to gain capabilities in the desired area.
Proficiency level must be graded in an acceptable framework. Defining just five stages like Beginning, Developing, Practitioner, Accomplished and Exemplary is a good process. By doing so, associating an appropriate training program with the right candidates becomes easy.
If one adapts SHIFT (Specific High-Intensity frequent Training) as a process, then it is suggested that the mother competency is broken into multiple sub competencies. A ‘Business Presentation’ competency may be broken into; Business speak, Writing presentation, Public speaking, Slide designing, Presentation delivery, audience engagement techniques and Q&A session. At individual, group and department level, it can be identified whether competency can be enhanced just by achieving sub competencies, at what level, in which sequence and, which are the parts that are important. An employee already Exemplary in slide designing may not need to be trained in it. And two employees at practitioner and Beginner level must not be trained together. At the same time, an excellent senior salesman may need training in speaking English before being pushed upstairs.
Competency mapping is essential to enhance ‘Training ROI’ and get the best out of Learning and Development programmes, So, decide if you still want to hit blindfolded or would want to make a fresh start.
First published in MXMINDIA.COM under the wednesday column KOTMARTIAL
Sanjeev Kotnala is founder of Intradia World; a Brand, Marketing & Management Advisory. His focus area includes Ideation and Innovation; he also conducts specialised workshops like IDEAHarvest, Liberate and InNoWait. For soft skill training, he follows SHIFT (Specific High-Intensity Frequent training), a process of continuous training with frequent shorter sessions. Email sanjeev@intradia.in tweet @s_kotnala web: www.intradia.in www.sanjeevkotnala.com.
