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In Search of Silliness: The Perfect Competency List
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Almost every week someone posts a request for competencies here on the ER Forum. It usually goes something like this: “I am a recruiter for XYZ organization and I am looking for a competency list for the PQR job. Does anyone have one I could use?” Sound reasonable? Well, before you jump to conclusions, you might want to think about these questions:
I would never have known this a few years ago, but after working with hundreds of the world’s best-known organizations, I can truthfully say size is no guarantee of skill, knowledge, or competency. For example, I once worked with a world leader in marketing. Their HR department had no less than four totally unworkable competency lists: one for executives, one for HR people, one for trainers, and one for everyone else. Authors worked with their own consultants and had their own ideas (and definitions) of competencies. It was a mess. The lesson? The competency list you get from another corporation will probably be no better than the list you develop on your own, and yours just might be better than theirs. Competency Definitions I won’t make up my own definition; Merriam-Webster’s is good enough for me. M-W says the word “competent” came into the English language in the 16th century. It is derived from the Latin root word “competere” meaning “capable/applicable/relevant/sufficient/adequate/competent.” When put to work in the organization, “competent” means being able to “do” a specific job. Now, the big question: What specific competencies does each job in your organization require? Don’t know? Well, neither will anyone outside the organization. Hopefully, I am making it clear that “outside” lists, if they are any good at all, are usually pitifully inadequate for organizationally specific jobs. The only good competencies are the competencies your organization needs to accomplish its business plan. If you don’t know what these are, your company is probably in total confusion about what it wants to accomplish (if it is any consolation, your competitors are probably confused, too). In many cases, with the exception of work hours, “business organization” is a total oxymoron. Job-Specific Competencies Competencies are developed job by job. They might have some overlap in name (e.g., ability to learn and apply new information), but they can be significantly different in meaning (e.g., ability to learn and apply new statistical principles, ability to learn and apply new marketing strategies, or ability to learn and apply new policies and procedures). Because developing a comprehensive list of job-specific competencies would require knowing every job task in every organization ó and being willing to change the competency list with every change in the job ó it is easier to work from a core set of applicant skills. Measuring Competencies This is a subtle point, but an important one. If two people come to the same conclusion about whether an applicant has a job competency, either the measurement system or the competency is worthless. For example, I can measure a person’s “ability to learn” using a pencil and paper test. High scores indicate more “ability to learn” and low scores indicate less. But how do I measure a person’s “leadership” or “business acumen”? Each of these so-called competencies is a moving target. Take, for example, “leadership”. Even if you can get two people to agree on one definition, leadership changes with time, with the leader, and with the subordinate. Not only is leadership a complicated combination of activities that include giving clear directions (i.e., communication and analysis), following up (i.e., planning), coaching (i.e., coaching), and evaluation (i.e., judgment), but leadership also depends on a host of internal and external factors. A “good” competency is one that is observable, measurable, realistic, time-bound and job-related. Using “fuzzy” competencies like leadership and business acumen may initially sound attractive, but I will guarantee that employees will eventually get frustrated and angry, and wind up criticizing HR for installing yet another ill-founded program-of-the-month. Never seen it fail. Executives Know Best? Sure. And politicians care more about you than they care about themselves. The incompetence rate for managers is estimated to be somewhere between 75% and 90% ó and this is the audience who signs-off on HR initiatives. (I wouldn’t expect the majority of managers to become thought-leaders anytime soon). Managers often actively resist the most solid efforts to build effective HR systems. I once tried to convince an exceedingly dull VP of HR why she should test new employees for learning ability. Although her company lost about a million dollars each year on training “drop-outs,” she refused to make a decision. Good thing this company had enough money to waste a cool million every year, because their VP was incompetent. How About a List of Interview Questions? Sheesh! No. No. No. If an organization does not have a solid idea about the competencies it needs, then what good are a list of questions? Here is, in fact, the secret to good hiring (pass it on):
Sickening Conclusion Bad hiring is easy. Find a warm body. Ask questions. Get pleasant answers. Hire. Fret about performance differences. Search for better questions. Repeat. Good hiring is hard. I hear it all the time after I do all the work necessary for a job analysis. When I present the client with a list of competencies necessary to do the job (remember, my lists are totally based on what job experts say it takes to do the job), the most frequent response I get from HR is, “Wow! That’s a lot of skills. We don’t have that much time. Besides, how will we ever find those kind of people?” Think about it. I just told HR what it takes to do a job based on data supplied by their own people, and HR responds by complaining that finding people with job competencies will make their job harder! Can you imagine? This would be like an Air Force recruiter hiring street people to fly jets because they are easier to recruit. How many jets do you think the Air Force would lose using this strategy? Only about one out of seven applicants (not resumes) have the right job skills. Recruiting done poorly can cost as much as 50% of annual payroll ó every year. Good recruiting can have more impact on profitability than any other single HR intervention, but it takes work and perseverance. This is a zero-sum game. There is NO shortcut. Either HR works harder or line managers’ work harder. Any recruiter who thinks he or she can do a better job by searching for competency lists or using better interview questions is doomed to an occupation filled with frustration and complete disrespect.