WHAT IS A COMPETENCY PROFILE
Introduction
Competencies are personal qualities in terms of skills, style, and knowledge, which a job holder needs to have in order to successfully realize his or her tasks. These competencies are determined for every employee in a so-called competency profile.
In the following, we briefly describe our model of a competency profile (download for
more information: ‘Formulating competency profiles’).
Competency profile model
Our competency profile consists of the following segments:
- Job title
- Job purpose
- Result areas
- Critical incidents and behavioral skills
- Summary of behavioral skills
Job title
We have chosen to use common and recognizable job titles on our website. This makes it easier for you to review our website.
Job purpose
The purpose describes the raison d’être of the job in concise formulations.
Result areas
Result areas are the products and services which are delivered to internal or external clients. Only the most important result areas are adopted. The most important result areas are not always the ones on which the job holder spends the most time, but the ones that are the most important result areas for the client.
Internal clients are other departments within the organization or colleagues within one’s own department. External clients are usually outside one’s own organization.
A result area must fulfill the following conditions during the formulation process:
- It must involve products or services which are delivered to internal or external ‘clients’. In other words, there must always be a buyer.
- A result area refers to a result (and not to an activity). It is not concerned with what you do but with what you deliver.
- A result area is preferably described by one single pronoun. The brevity helps to distill the essence of the contribution.
- Approximately five to eight result areas are named per job. A smaller number is always possible.
- Every result area is provided with a brief description.
Tip:
You will encounter generalized competency profiles on this website. This means that the organization- and job-specific result areas have been omitted. The tasks of your employees presumably differ from the given result areas. If you wish to make use of the competency profiles on this website, please evaluate carefully the tasks of your employees. After all, other kinds of duties can lead to other relevant competencies. |
Critical incidents and behavioral skills
In every function, there are situations in which the job holder has to show what he or she is worth. Certain qualities of the official are decisive in these real situations regardless of whether he or she does well. These situations are called critical incidents. ‘Critical’ because that is when it matters. ‘Critical’ because only such incidents show which qualities are necessary to succeed in the job.
The objective of the competency profile is to determine behavioral skills that determine success. This is only possible if the right critical incidents are recognized and subsequently analyzed in relation to the accompanying behavioral skills. Thus, it is very important to identify the right critical incidents.
The critical incidents on this website constitute the foundation for choosing the behavioral skills. Particular incidents or particular tasks have not been included in the generalized competency profiles. We advise you, nevertheless, to be attentive to these particular incidents within the environment of your organization.
In general, a competency profile contains a minimum of three and a maximum of six critical incidents. The description of the incident and the behavior to be displayed in that incident are the key aspects.
The critical incidents in the competency profile are demonstrated by an eye-catching title reflecting the core (akin to the headline in the newspaper), followed by:
- Situation: a brief description of the situation; and
- Desired result: the intended result in that situation; and, finally, the
- Necessary behavior: a description of the behavior resulting in the desired result in the particular situation.
The critical incident is completed with an enumeration of one or multiple behavioral skills. These behavioral skills come from our behavioral skills list (to be downloaded separately from our page with Instruments). A large number of behavioral skills are defined unambiguously in the behavioral skills list. The definitions, to the extent possible, are linked with accepted and common definitions in the workplace.
The competency profile only includes the behavioral skills which, by definition, correspond largely to the desired behavior described in the critical incident.
The profile consists of so-called threshold skills. These are skills that have to be present as a base, without which the jobholder would not even be appointed. The assigning of skills involves the essential skills that indicate the difference between the well-functioning employee and the ordinarily working employee.
Summary of behavioral skills
This paragraph summarizes the behavioral skills named under the critical incidents, together with the definitions of the behavioral skills. Altogether, a profile cannot consist of more than eight behavioral skills.
As for the competency profiles, such obvious factors as knowledge and experience play a large role in the successful fulfillment of a job. However, knowledge is so specific for an organization that its inclusion in a generalized competency profile does not provide any added value for the user.