For the last two decades, we have defined competencies as ‘measurable characteristics of a person that are related to success at work’. They can be technical in nature, such as the ability to develop a business plan or design a software program, or behavioural, which describe how a person goes about their job.
The ability to build strong customer relationships and deliver customer-centric solutions may drive success in a sales role, whilst motivating people to do their best to help the organisation achieve its objectives may be the key to effectiveness as a manager.
The value of behavioural competencies is well established. Ongoing research by Lominger, Korn Ferry and others has consistently found that that they account for between 40 and 60 percent of total job performance.
Organisations around the world recognise the need for competency frameworks that link individual competencies to the broader goals of the organisation, filtered through the business context and competitive strategy.
However, two factors are emerging that are shaping the way organisations think about their competency needs:
- The rapidly shifting business environment demands increasing levels of resilience, flexibility and the ability to lead change and they want competencies to reflect this.
- Many leaders recognise that they are facing an inadequate supply of top quality, ready-now talent and this is having a profound impact on hiring and selection.
In this context, the innovative new Korn Ferry Leadership Architect™ has a number of features with special appeal to those who want to:
- Make sure their competencies are described in contemporary language that truly reflects the needs of jobs today.
- Align competencies to their current business drivers and challenges, whilst also addressing future needs.
- Precisely target a list of the most high-impact behaviours, skills and attributes.
- Ensure competencies are relevant to people across the business, whilst keeping them simple and easy to use.
- Take much of the guesswork out of putting the right talent in the right role at the right time.
In upcoming blogs we will describe how competencies themselves have evolved, how they are applied at different levels in the organisation and ways to overcome the most common challenges in implementing competency frameworks.