Competency-based HRM

Competency-based HRM is about using the concept of competency and the results of competency analysis to inform and improve the processes of performance management, recruitment and selection, employee development and employee reward. The language has dominated much of HR thinking and practice in recent years.

The concept of competency has achieved this degree of prominence because it is essentially about performance. Mansfield (1999) defines competency as ‘an underlying characteristic of a person that results in effective or superior performance’. Rankin (2002) describes competencies as ‘definitions of skills and behaviours that organizations expect their staff to practice in their work’ and explains that:

Competencies represent the language of performance. They can articulate both the expected outcomes from an individual’s efforts and the manner in which these activities are carried out. Because everyone in the organization can learn to speak this language, competencies provide a common, universally understood means of describing expected performance in many different contexts. 

Competency-based HR is primarily based on the concepts of behavioural and technical competencies as defined in the first section of this chapter. But it is also associated with the use of National and Scottish Vocational qualifications (NVQs/SNVQs) as also examined in the first section. The next five sections of the chapter concentrate on the application and use of behavioural and technical competencies under the following headings:

● competency frameworks; 

● reasons for using competencies; 

● use of competencies; 

● guidelines on the development of competency frameworks; 

● keys to success in using competencies.

The final section describes the associated concept of emotional intelligence.