Category: Competency Development

In today’s world if you fail to continuously develop and enhance your skills and abilities, you will be left behind and your career will stagnate. To attain success in one’s career, one cannot afford to overlook the value of his/her competencies; these must be constantly honed and improved, and failure to do so would only mean that another person might grab the next available opportunity.

Highly competent individuals get better career opportunities. Learning and developing a new competency is a process; it cannot happen overnight. Whether you are an individual or an organization, it is imperative that you understand the responsibilities and challenges that are part and parcel of any endeavor to develop a new competency. However, the good news is that when you focus on building up and increasing the level of competencies, you will have an edge over other individuals and other organizations.

The concepts of competency are discussed in depth in this training series. You will get comprehensive information about the definitions of competency, and how it differs from competence; these two are often thought to have the same meaning when actually, they are different concepts. Moreover, you will learn and understand competency frameworks, otherwise known as competency models, and find out how these can help individuals and organizations improve their competency levels. Furthermore, competencies on various areas such as recruitment, training, project management, and leadership roles are discussed in detail in this series.

Using Competencies in Project Management

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Project management has been defined as the process involved to successfully attain the goals and objectives of a given project. There are several types of project managers such as construction project manager, software project manager, architectural project manager and research project manager. Every project management endeavor has a manager. The project manager has a long list of roles that needs to be filled so that the project can be completed in the best means possible. These roles are categorized into: planning, organizing, managing, executing and closing. Roles of a Project… Read More

Using Competency Frameworks to Improve Performance

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The design and development of a competency framework is the initial step to improving the level of performance of employees in a company. The next steps are implementation and execution. Gaining a good understanding of the “why,” the “what” and the “how” signals the need to proceed with the use of these frameworks as guidelines in achieving optimum performance at work. The Why, the What, and the How To gain acceptance and trust from employees, it is necessary to uncover the answers to the “why,” “what,” and “how” first. Why,… Read More

Using Competencies in Selecting Your People

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During hiring process, companies focus on an individual’s competencies, and this is more evident today than ever. Their understanding of the value of people to help them communicate their core competencies to their market and the rest of the world has paved the way for the integration of competency-based hiring practices. The kind of people hired by any company will impact the business, and such impact can go either way – good or bad. The employees are the heart of the company; if they are highly competent individuals then they… Read More

Using Competencies in Training

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Training is a very significant aspect in helping employees become more efficient and effective in their job. Thus, it is very important that this department must be equipped with the necessary competencies that will allow them to impart and transfer knowledge and understanding to the trainees through various methods, strategies, and activities. Areas of Competence and Competencies of a Trainer The areas of competence of a trainer, and their corresponding competencies are: Training Delivery: Presentation of learning objectives must be set clearly; audio-visual aids must encourage learning. The trainer should… Read More

Using Competencies for Employment

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Finding employment in this competitive world is difficult, and keeping one’s job is also tricky.  Ineffective performance from previous work experiences can be evident especially if the prospective employer is keen on using structured interviews; who would want to hire an ineffective person? Moreover, if you do not perform well, you stand the chance of being laid off because there will always be other more competent and deserving individuals willing to take your place. To go up in the echelons of success, a person needs to be competent. Now the… Read More

How to Develop a New Competency

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To stay competitive, one must adapt to the changing times. Today, there are already many competencies that were unheard of 50 years ago. This is particularly true for functional competencies which are job-specific competencies; in the past, there were no web developers and designers, which mean that before, people were not required to know programming languages and stylesheets. The advent of technology has paved the way for these competencies to exist; thus, people who want to be able to move up in their career have to evolve too, especially when… Read More

Competencies Key Principles

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Competencies can be produced and learned by one or many individuals by adhering to a framework. Competencies must also be updated and made adaptable to hold relevance to those they were designed for. However, in order to get commitment from employees, there are guiding principles to be followed. These will be discussed in detail in this article. Principle 1: Collaboration Management creates policies for everyone to follow; they create plans and programs designed for all. But when it comes to designing a competency framework for the organization, the task should… Read More

Influences of Competency

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Competency is a person’s knowledge, skills, and attitude that will allow him to perform his job functions in a superior and effectual manner. A person with the required competencies can handle a job much better than a person who does not have them. For this reason, companies are always spending their resources to ensure that they employ highly competent individuals. To achieve this goal, they provide competency-focused interviews to be able to screen those who have the competencies the company is looking for. Moreover, they also conduct regular performance evaluations… Read More

Leadership Competencies

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Leadership role in any organization is vital to its success. Managers can be leaders but not every manager is a leader. A leader must be able to create a vision, influence others, and bring out the best in their people. With leadership, one can initiate action among his people. He can motivate everyone to keep going, with or without the help of rewards. Additionally, leadership enables a person to provide guidance to others so that work can be done effectively and efficiently, and such guidance is given through coaching and… Read More

Competency Assessment

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For an individual to know his strengths and weaknesses, it is imperative to conduct a self-assessment. The process involves answering a set of questions specifically designed to help individuals discover what characteristics and abilities they possess that can help them succeed in their endeavors. On the other hand, managers should assess their employees’ level of competency in order to appraise their performance as well as to help them develop and excel in their career. More often than not, competency assessments are done only to check whether a particular individual has… Read More

Competency Framework

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A competency framework is a method by which an organization can accurately assess the knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) of their employees. In addition, it also helps maintain and keep track of these competencies; a tool to measure competency levels to ensure that everyone makes significant contributions to the organization by performing in a superior manner. With a competency framework, recruitment officers will be able to effectively hire the ideal candidate they need for their company; managers will be able to make sound decisions in managing their employees; and employees… Read More

Competency and Competence

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Competency and competence have often been used interchangeably. Moreover, people often think that competency and competence are one and the same however this is a misconception. What a lot of people fail to realize is that these are two different concepts and cannot be used to take the other’s place. To understand this better, definitions of each are given below. Competency (pl. competencies) refers to the characteristics of a person; these may be observable or non-observable. Such characteristics are behavior-based, and are instrumental to helping a person perform his tasks… Read More

Types of Competency

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There are many competencies that have been identified over the years, and these are divided into six types. Below are the basic definitions and examples of each Competency. The Six Types of Competencies Individual Competency– This type refers to a person’s own knowledge, skills, and attitudes (behavior) that contribute to effectiveness in performance, as well as in dealings with other people. Business Competency– This refers to the knowledge and skills required in a particular business or industry. Management Competency– This refers to a set of competencies that are applicable only… Read More

Introduction to Competency

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In order to perform well in any job, an individual needs possess all necessary skill set and knowledge, as well as the personal attributes. Today’s Individuals have become fiercely competitive to succeed in their chosen fields, and are equipping themselves with the right attitude, knowledge, and skills. Understanding this reality will create awareness that to stay competitive you must have an edge over the others. For this reason, you need to develop certain competencies. Many often confuse competence and competency. Although used interchangeably, they are nonetheless different from each other.… Read More