The past year saw a growing trend from organisations to assess the competency of their workforce. Seugnet van den Berg says the reason for the increasing demand is that competency assessments review the actual knowledge and skills required for individuals to perform at their job as opposed to personality and cultural fit.
Typically organisations are more likely to conduct competency assessments when there is a merger and acquisition, restructuring or new initiatives being developed. This is a robust approach van den Berg says that many organisations steer clear of.
“We believe that it is important for organisations to annually carry out competency assessments as it provides the company with a sanity check on how their employees are operating and whether the in-house skills exist to ensure the successful operation of the organisation.”
Bizmod has identified five key pillars to competency and in order to undertake an effective competency assessment organisations need to define the five pillars.
Pillar 1 – Knowledge – defining what an individual needs to know in order to execute their role
Pillar 2 – Behavioural – defining the behaviour required for delivery on the functional role expectations
Pillar 3 – Functional – defining outcomes required to execute a specific role
Pillar 4 – Values – defining the preferred underlying state
Pillar 5 – Level of work – defining the individual operational level required to execute a specific role
Van den Berg says that Bizmod defines competence as performing a skill in context, to standard, integrating knowledge and its application. To undertake a competency assessment an organisation needs to define its competency frameworks per job and agree the definition and standard required per competency. This process is driven by the organisation but facilitated by consultants like Bizmod.
Competency assessments need not be a lengthy and costly exercise. “This is a proven methodology with quick delivery providing organisations with a pragmatic value add while reducing risk with a standardised, structured and disciplined approach,” concludes van den Berg.