WORKING WITH COMPETENCY FRAMEWORKS

Why competencies are important

Whether you call them competencies, attributes, behaviours, or capabilities, successful change often starts with a vision for people. How will your people live the brand? What new skills or behaviours will be needed? What competencies will be required to deliver new processes or technologies? How will your people deliver against customers’ expectations? What will they do to make their interactions with customers distinctive and special?

Many of our change projects start with a focus on the key competencies (skills, knowledge or behaviours) required to deliver the organisation’s strategic objectives. This may relate to specific groups (leadership competencies, management competencies, sales competencies or customer service competencies) or cover the organisation as a whole.

Competencies underpin people strategy

We believe that starting with competencies provides a rare opportunity for an organisation to develop a clear, unequivocal picture of ‘what good looks like’. It links the Human Resources Strategy, Learning and Development Strategy and Organisational Development Strategy with the wider Business Strategy, and allows the leaders of the organisation to establish a relationship between strategic objectives and investment in people.

Because a competency framework provides a clear message about what’s important, it can be used to drive the Learning and Development strategy. Competency mapping can be used to build Learner Journeys, Career Pathways and Development Frameworks focusing on delivering the people vision.

They can also be used to deliver competency-based recruitment, competency-based assessment and competency-based performance management, to ensure that individual development and performance is fully aligned with the business vision.

By implementing a bespoke competency framework your business can benefit from aligning previously disjointed elements to improve business efficiency.

If required, we can also map a bespoke framework onto external standards, such as the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), supporting a link to external awards or national qualifications. 

The case studies on this page illustrate our approach in more detail.

For more information on how cda can help you to develop a competency framework to deliver your organisation's strategic objectives, get in touch today.