At the heart of any successful
activity lies a competence
or a skill. Today, when the environment is very turbulent
and competitive, it is becoming increasingly important to build
on the competitive activities of business. Top
management identifies core competencies and strives to establish
them throughout the organization. It is the responsibility of
HR department to build competency-based models that drives
business results.
There are number of definitions of competency, but most of
them refer to competence. Hogg (1993) had defined it as "Competencies
are characteristics of a manager that lead to demonstration of skills
and abilities, which result in effective performance with an
occupational area." A person is said to be competent, till the time he
possess the knowledge, skill and ability required for that particular job.
As soon as the job changes, the person, though having competence
for previous job, now lacks it for the new job. Even a slight change in a
job requires a different set of competencies.
Today, every organization aims at becoming a high
performance organization. For these, they continuously endeavor to be
a learning organization. In order to be successful, they should have a
well-managed job description for every role and also the
specifications needed to perform that role. These form the groundwork
for competency mapping process. This information is very much useful
for all competency-based HR functions, right from recruitment
to selection to appraisals. |
