Competence At Work Models For Superior Performance

[Francisca Noggles]

Cananyone provide me with samples of competency based job descriptions? What is your methodology to develop them, and how successful have you been in (1) implementing and (2) tying performance measures to the competencies. Thank you! Pam Baldwin

I have a simplistic view of competency frameworks in that I see them as largely generic. To link them with Job Descriptions I usually create the job description by writing down the tasks required choosing a wording which describes how they should look when done well. Then you can link competency statements to these in the form of a Person Specification.

Whether you develop the system through your internal HR business partners or through an external consultant, buy-in of the line management and/or stakeholders is going to be an integral step in ensuring success of your program.

Preparing competency based job descriptions would requrie you to define the competency dictionary for your organization - which would include functional (role / task specific) as well as behavioral competencies. Once you have these in place, you could then map these competencies to the different levels and positions in your organization.

Carl - we used the same process to create the level profiles. I agree it is an effective way to create meaningful profiles that are supported by the organization, since they were involved in the process.

Cindy

Hi Pam,

I take a completely different approach from DDI or the individual contributor-manager-leader strata. The exercise is facilitated by the HR consultant or internal HR business partner. The key stakeholders are producing the end result or output. Stakeholders include the manager of the targeted position, incumbent(s), other key stakeholders. Because it is facilitated by a process expert, the work and time is minimal for the stakeholders. The output is amazingly on target and valuable for the stakeholders. I refer to the final output as a master job profile which includes well written key accountabilities for the position and competencies for success. Employees, managers, senior executives own the output and use it throughout the life cycle from hiring to development, internal promotion consideration, talent gap analysis, coaching etc. .

Dear Cristina,

Your thoughts are nice but I would say there are certain Job descriptions

defined and they are standards which can be adapted outright. It is only required

if the Job has to be defined as per the Requirement of Organization. The responsibilities

are to be defined after designing the Job Description.The number of such jobs are rare and

seen in small organizations where the staffing is less.

I would tend to encourage Ms. Pam Baldwin define the competency framework for each job and from that framework to develop job descriptions. I would not look at the candidates, I would look at what the candidate need s in terms of competences, skills, and behavior and then build the ideal profile (the job specification). Only the third step would be to actually design the job description, which is a compilation of the scope of the role, major assignments in that role, reports to, relations with other departments, etc.

This is a very difficult issue, but I tried in my previous organization. We

have screened candidates and then taking into consideration his performance

during orientation subsequent induction his job profile was made. He was closely observed for 3

months. His performance has been up to mark and then his Job Specification and

description was finalized. I think this is the best procedure which can be tried.

The purpose of this paper is to clarify which knowledge, skills and behaviors are used to describe excellent performance in professional communication. As the demand for talented communication professionals increases, organizations and educators need an empirically defined set of performance criteria to guide the development of (potentially) excellent communication professionals (ECPs). This research aimed to render a competence profile which could assist in the development of recruitment, training and development to develop relevant programs for high-potential communication practitioners.

This mixed-method research was approached in two phases: first, a series of focus groups (n=16) were held to explore work field perspectives resulting in a concept profile, and second, a series of expert panels (n=30) following the Delphi method were conducted to determine the extent of agreement with the findings.

Although a broad range of relevant professionals were involved in both phases, the study could be considered limited in size and scope. Research was conducted in one national setting therefore further research would be necessary to confirm generalizability of the results to other cultural contexts.

Although many competence frameworks exist which describe normative performance in this profession, specific criteria which illustrate excellent performance have not yet been identified. This competence profile clarifies characteristics which typify excellent performance in professional communication and can be helpful to educators and employers who wish to identify and create suitable training programs for ECPs.

Regrettably, identifying the professionals who excel in managing these organizational demands is difficult (Wooldridge, 2006; Nilsson and Ellstrm, 2012). Although variables to identify excellent communication departments have been empirically defined (Verčič and Zerfass, 2016), specific competences which can be used to describe the individual who performs at an excellent level are not as clear. So, what is an excellent communication professional (ECP)? What competences do they possess and display which distinguish them as excellent and make them especially suited to excel at accomplishing these complex tasks? This exploratory research investigated the characteristics of an excellent individual communication practitioner, with the aim to assist organizations and educational institutions to more effectively steer their identification, training, and development efforts.

When reviewing the content of the profiles, there appear to be seven main competence domains, namely: theoretical aspects of the communication discipline, technical communication skills, organizational environment and processes, peripheral context, research and analytical ability, interpersonal aptitude, personality or character traits. Within these matrices, there is significant variation. While one matrix explains requirements of a competence area in detail, others present the required competence in more general terms.

Gifted is often a term used synonymously with talent and excellence. Research indicates that gifted individuals differ significantly from their peers in factors essential for achievement in professional practice, specifically in terms of intelligence, creative thinking, openness to experience, desire to learn and motivation to excel (Scager et al., 2012). Gifted individuals express superior natural abilities in their field and are among the top 10 percent of their peers when compared by intellectual, creative, socio-affective, or sensorimotor aptitude (Gagn, 2004).

Research therefore suggests that excellent performance is much broader than just deep technical or practical knowledge, and that excellent individual professionals may or may not possess inherent aptitudes for specific performance areas. Regardless of the whether aspects of professional excellence are natural or learned, if organizations aim to select and manage talent, or an individual intends to develop into an excellent professional, then a set of criteria to describe excellent performance is a necessity (Nilsson and Ellstrm, 2012). Therefore, in this research we aim to explore which criteria could best be used to describe individual excellence in the Communication profession.

This exploratory study aimed to identify competences for excellent performance in professional communication using a mixed-method qualitative approach. The goal was to investigate the specific characteristics of excellent performance as valued by the professional field, and present these in the form of a conceptual profile which could be used to develop or improve the competences of focus in training and development programs. This lead to the following overarching question:RQ1. According to the professional field, which competence characteristics typify an ECP?

This mixed-method research was approached in two phases: first, three focus groups (FGs) were held to explore work field perspectives resulting in a concept competence profile, and second, a series of expert panels following the Delphi method were conducted to reach consensus about the relevant competences (Figure 1).

Before the FGs occurred, a discussion guide was created. This discussion guide was used by the moderator to help introduce concepts, facilitate discussion and sustain focus upon the research topic during the FGs. The guide structured the approach to gathering information and to operationalized concepts found in literature concerning descriptions of normative communication competence, theory on excellent performance in professional communication contexts and educational theory regarding talent and giftedness development in general. The first set of probes aimed to elicit examples of behavior, attitudes or knowledge which a CP displays that typify excellent performance to look for convergence or divergence with the available competence matrices (Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2016; Vereniging Hogescholen, 2008; Jeffrey and Brunton, 2011; Zerfass et al., 2012; Logeion, 2015; National Communication Association, 2015; Tench and Moreno, 2015; Global Alliance, 2015; International Association of Business Communicators, 2016; Public Relations Institute of Australia, 2016). Next, the probes explored topics concerning professional talent and excellent performance in the context of the profession (Grunig, 1992; Nilsson and Ellstrm, 2012; Meng and Berger, 2013) and indicators of giftedness in general, such as knowledge, experience, interpersonal skills, situational awareness, and autonomy (Sternberg, 2001; Renzulli, 2003; Feltovich et al., 2006; Goleman, 2006).

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