Benefits to human resources management

In addition to the contribution made to the organizational effectiveness of your organization, competency based employee performance management brings clear benefits to your HR processes.  For example, competencies clarify the standards of performance to allow organizations to easily define excellence and to allow managers and employees to have open dialogue about performance and development issues.

Once the work is understood and the tasks for each role are identified, it becomes possible to identify the underlying competencies that enable incumbents to do these tasks well.  This takes the exercise from the WHAT to the HOW, connecting the incumbent's job description to their performance plan.

Remember that competencies are defined as observable knowledge, skills, abilities, motivation or traits defined in terms of the behaviours needed for successful job performance. For example, we asked people to demonstrate more initiative without explaining what that meant. The competencies resolve this by describing the expected behaviours that lead to successful performance in a role. They express the manner in which the tasks are to be accomplished.

Results at a job level are linked to organizational success because competency based management aligns job competencies with organizational goals and standardizes and integrates all HR activities to support those goals.