Management and Competencies free essay sample

In understanding how an organisation can improve through organizational competency frameworks, one must first understand what is a competency. Competency, defined by Boyzatis (1982: 21) is known as â€Å"the behavioral characteristic of a person which is casually related to effective or superior performance in a job† Competencies act as a signal from the organisation which indicate to an individual behaviours and actions that will be valued, recognised and in some organisations rewarded. Each individual competency consists of a number of observable behaviours (i. e. behavioural indicators) that are relevant to the performance of the role. Lets use an aerospace manufacturing organisation such as Pattonair to understand what key competencies it requires for its employees to be successful; People management is crucial; it demonstrates competencies of planning, guiding developing human resources. It incorporates using prior knowledge of individual’s strengths, interests, development needs to delegate tasks; provides accurate regular feedback; identifies where support is needed and provides it. Team work; working effectively with all members of the team to achieve shared objectives. Contributes to sense of camaraderie and strengthens collaboration across departments. Production and efficient management skills Problem solving; an employee deals quickly and effectively in a calm manor to difficult or unforeseen situations. Communication is vital in order to achieve results and maintain and encourage motivation. Listen attentively to what people have to say in order to gain an accurate understanding of their wants and needs. Innovation In understanding these competencies lets now build a competency framework, Pilbeam and Corbridge (2006) suggest that a competency framework is both a list of these competencies and a tool by which they are expressed, assessed and measured. This framework can either emphasize behavioral competencies, technical competencies or both. FIGURE 1- Competency Framework for Pattonair focusing on the Team Work cluster One of the major causes of failure of large-scale organisational change efforts is poor communication (Kotter, 1996). Competencies are proven to be a strong and powerful tool used by HR managers that help communicate to staff change objectives and expectations of management when alterations are made regarding job roles and the delivery of these roles, competencies also lead to a significantly improved understanding throughout companies regarding the desirable actions and behaviours for reaching the goals set etc. A large majority of employees at the Pattonair Head Quarters in Derby pointed out that competencies clarify where the company wants to go and how it should operate in order to successfully reach these strategic destinations. The Global Commercial Director Dave Fawcett with long experience within the industry said: â€Å"Competencies will help people understand Pattonair’s vision. Many times in the past we heard about changes in what the bank will do in the future but until now, it was never very clear how such changes would affect us or what we would need to do in order to follow these plans. † Through the competencies framework, with well defined and expressed competencies anchored in strategy, jobholders felt they gained a better understanding of what was expected, what was rewarded, what was desirable and what behaviours and abilities would be needed in the short-, mid- and more long-run. As mentioned above, the top management of Pattonair decided to redefine their HR methods and systems starting from a focus on individual job-related competencies. The competency model should focus not only on behaviours, knowledge and skills necessary, but should also facilitate communication about strategy and articulate how people could expect to be selected, trained, evaluated, and rewarded after implementation of the new strategy. Moreover, competencies related to the ability to change, learn and take initiatives should explicitly be integrated. The competency framework Pattonair are adopting should also take into consideration not only job descriptions, but also best practices and recent trends in the aerospace industry as well as the organisation’s own strategy (Martone, 2003), so as to guarantee a direct and dynamic link between strategy and competencies and the relevance and â€Å"survival† of the framework throughout and beyond the implementation of the change program. Second, the competency framework should consist of a set of â€Å"generic† competency areas, with each competency area to be composed of a limited number of competencies that would be relevant, to different degrees, for every concerned job position (Lucia and Lepsinger, 1999). Criticisms Difficulties with the operation and implementation of competency management systems are mostly related to the complex and lengthy process required for identifying the appropriate competencies for an organisation and for building the appropriate competency model Athey and Orth (1999). Another issue of concern is that the competencies defined most often end up as being backward-looking rather than future-oriented with respect to strategy and organisational change (Torrington et al. , 2002). Competency models tend to focus on what managers currently do rather than what is needed to perform effectively in the future (Antonacopoulou and Fitzgerald, 1996), something that jeopardises the potential of competencies to act as levers for implementing change (Martone, 2003). If HR managers fail to adapt continuously and reengineer periodically their organisation’s competency framework, it will at best become outdated and fall into oblivion, and at worst drag the organisation into stagnation and loss of competitive momentum. CONCLUSION Now that I have drawn together and critically discussed a range of principles and approaches using vast ranges of literature, my conclusions are as followed. Heffernan and Flood (2000) outline two approaches to competencies, first the US approach and second the UK approach. The predominant US approach portrayed by Boyatzis, Ulrich and others defines competency as the underlying attributes of a person. It is largely an input-based approach, defining the inputs needed to demonstrate competent performance. In contrast, the UK approach sees competency as a set of performances and standards. Boam and Sparrow 1992), among others, are part of a group of mostly English authors who proposed that competency was best used as a measure of output learning. Training and assessment of performance was the thrust of this approach. Stuart and Lindsay 1997) suggest each model is incomplete and therefore lacking as a comprehensive frame for understanding and working with managerial competence. Neither approach adequately defines managerial competence in terms of the context of the organisation, its culture, marketplace and business environment. Potential positive impacts for supporting strategic change / levers/actions for tapping into this potential By using Competency frameworks it will help and allow a company such as Pattonair in Institutionalizing any changes HR management wish to enforce, The shift to a competency-based performance management system allows HR management to start this change through better goal setting, clarification of expectations, reward of behaviours that support new strategic objectives. Improvement of employees’ understanding of how to reach goals Accompany the competency framework with clear guidelines methodologies for linking competencies to goals, for clarifying what is desirable, for conducting competency-based evaluation Follow up frequently on employees’ understanding of what is expected Clarify what behaviours/abilities will be needed in the short-, mid-more long-term future