The Challenges and Benefits of Competency Management

Today's organizations, regardless of industry, face enormous challenges, like:

● Skilled talent is at a premium, while retaining top talent remains a losing game for most.

● Organizations need help understanding the complexities of five-generation workforces and the nuances of each generation.

● Predictive HR analytics is beginning to play a much more central role in shaping talent decisions and actions.

● Efficient and enterprise-wide talent strategies rely on automation, and employee expectations to engage in a holistic work experience require keen insight into existing and requisite employee capability.

A central element to increasing employee capability is learning and development that yields a competent and agile workforce that can flex with changing business goals.

Competency management is the pulse of performance improvement at an individual and organizational level. A high-consequence industry like aviation, mining, heavy manufacturing, pharmaceuticals or life sciences, etc., often prioritizes employee development for compliance reasons. However, for all industries, the opportunity for leadership and technical skill development is crucial.
Data shows that nearly a third of organizations have yet to define the essential leadership competencies that all leaders must possess to achieve their goals. Out of these, fewer than ten percent of companies have automated competency management.

Thus, adopting a competency management system that provides and streamlines the monitoring and management of desired skills and competencies is essential.

The Benefits of Competency Management

A competency management system that is effective and automated creates a real-time and predictive inventory of a workforce's abilities. Defining and automating job roles and associated competency proficiency allows leadership to identify strengths and skill gaps quickly. After competency management, targeted skill development learning solutions improve individual and organizational performance, resulting in better business results. Organizations with high performance describe the following benefits of competency management:

● Enriched understanding of expected behaviors and performance: Knowing the target performance is the fastest way to improve performance. Organizations that take the time to define the short list of competencies and expected proficiency levels for each competency, according to the job role, essential for achieving business goals have taken the first step toward giving employees and leaders the best chance at performance excellence.

● Improved talent planning: Leadership is informed about talent capability based on the results of competency assessments. To be assessed as competent, an employee must demonstrate the ability and experience to perform the job's tasks. Leadership would otherwise be blind to data and analytics about employees' skills and knowledge to mitigate performance risks.

● Optimized development and mobility strategy: An organization's success depends on how capable its people are. Additionally, they recognize that formal training only equips employees with the skills they need to succeed at work. This is where competency management and competency-based development come into play. Developing competency standards for specific roles in an organization is the basis of competency-based development.

● Enhanced talent pipeline: Automated competency management provides on-demand information about employees' and leaders' competency mastery and readiness for next-level positions. Organizations are better prepared with their development planning and, therefore, have healthier talent pipelines regardless of economic or business conditions.

● Improved operational efficiencies: With competency management automation, business-driven learning and development is enabled, non-value-added training is eliminated, strengths are identified for further development, critical skill gaps are identified for mitigation, and employee and leadership satisfaction levels are higher.

● Integrated talent processes: Competency management becomes the standard by which the highest-performing organizations manage all phases of the employee lifecycle: from talent acquisition to development to retention and rewards.

Training interventions based on skill gaps identified by competency management systems channel the correct approach to training employees and make the training more effective and result oriented.

If you have any questions on the core competency management system, please feel free to contact: marketing@corecompetency.net or get in touch with us through our website www.corecompetency.net