Competency Best Practices Part 1: The Basics

Lately there have been a lot of Cornerstone clients, as well as potential clients, asking about best practices in Competency Management.  Either they are new to competencies, converting from a paper process or creating an entirely new process. And some questions have been sparked by my blog post, “Competencies: At the ‘Heart’ of the Talent Management Strategy.” (Thanks for reading!)  

I’ve been collecting a lot of ideas based on conversations with other HR and talent management leaders, as well as from materials I’ve read on the subject of competencies.  I’ve been doing this for quite a while, but as with all best practices, things change, and they change often!  

So here’s my latest collection.  I’m dividing it into two posts.  Part 1 will share some basic best practice tips for Competency Management.  Part 2 will explore how specific organizations should go with job competencies, as well as measuring everyday job performance.  

Competency Management: Some Basics

1. A top-down approach to competencies is usually the best received.  Start with core competencies or values at the company level and work your way down to key roles, then job-specific competencies.  Competencies should be:

• simple words people can live by
• easy to recite
• tied to company activities and strategic initiatives
• displayed on posters, pictured in hall ways and conference rooms
• spoken by the management team regularly
• ingrained into the culture

2. If you want employees to know the competencies, keep them to around 10.  If people can’t remember them, there’s a good chance they’re not thinking about them.

3. In general, role or job-specific competencies should have between 10-20 competencies total.  Remember that each competency will have behaviors that each employee will be measured against, and this can add up quickly.  Less is more.

4. Make sure you have a (multi-year) strategy in place for using competencies.  Consider how they will integrate with your learning and development, employee performance management and succession management initiatives.

5. Competencies need to be observable behaviors (simple explanation: If you can’t see the action being performed, it’s not observable).  The word “understands, knowledge of, and awareness” means different things to different people.  They are not observable.  

6. Behaviors should be listed in simple terms (6-8th grade level).  The competency or behavior also needs a point value so you can compare performance over time – and at different levels. For example, is accountability for the accountant the same for a senior accountant or an accounting supervisor?  Do you expect more performance from higher levels?  And do behaviors change at different levels?  

7. Competencies fall into a structure of “families” – strategic, operating, personal, interpersonal, etc.  Not all jobs have every family represented, but you should check to see if a family is missing from each job.

8. There are major differences between management skills and leadership skills.  Managers execute and follow leaders while leaders are visionaries.  Are you using the correct term or is everyone a leader in your organization? 

Laura Durando is Manager, Strategic Projects and Organizational Development for Cornerstone OnDemand.  She has over 25 years of business experience and has held executive positions in Talent Management and Organizational Development with multiple organizations.