Building a competency framework from an HR expert

The competency framework in the enterprise acts as a “lifeline” to help unleash the team’s capacity to the maximum with minimal effort.  The following article will provide managers with a comprehensive perspective on  building a human resource framework.

Competence is the most important competitive factor of each organization. Having a specific, accurate and strategic framework for each functional department will be the basis for the entire recruitment, training and development of the team. 

In practice, however, many organizations still build competencies emotionally, without actually investing resources, or assuming that the framework is entirely based on the Job description.   This leads to inefficient recruitment, incompetent personnel, managers do not have a proper training plan, causing a lot of waste, businesses are slow to develope .

The role of the competency framework

Imagine the following situation: You, as a manager, are assigning work to employees and asking, “Can you do this?”  The employee replies, “I think I can do it,” and you rest assured.   But then, when performing the job, the employee does not meet the requirements, causing many errors and time loss. This for business is a waste of costs, resources and opportunities.

Do you feel this situation is familiar? In your opinion, in this case, who made the mistake?  Is it because the manager assigns the wrong people, or because the employee does not evaluate  his own ability?

 This situation occurs because the root cause is that the team is not well versed in internal leadership – when both the manager and the implementation team do not have the  required level of competence to complete the job. When management does not give employees a specific assessment table, personnel do not know where to rely to assess their capacity, it is difficult for businesses to optimize resources and find key points to empower and train and develop necessary skills for the team.

That is also the main benefit of the competency framework – to play a fundamental role in determining all HR activities in the organization. In particular, the Competency Frame  (also known as the Competency Frame) is central in deciding on the following strategies and activities:

– Set specific HR competency standards that align with the organization’s goals and strategies

– Help recruit qualified employees who align with organizational goals

– Help pinpoint learning and development (L&D) needs

– Help employees understand the necessary skills and behaviors and plan for self-development

– Help track and plan for the skills needed in the future.

– Support the human resource management system, improve productivity, and quality.

Think of Archimedes’ famous quote: “Give me  a  tree long enough and a strong enough fulcrum, I will lift the earth.”   The competency framework in this image also serves as a tool and fulcrum .   Without an accurate fulcrum, despite a lot of recruitment and training efforts, it is still difficult for the organization to recruit the right  people or train “in the right places”.

The competency framework is built in a scientific and methodical way right from the beginning to  help managers unleash the team’s capacity to the maximum.

So what is a competency framework?

We probably already know that the ASK model (short for Attitude – Skill – Knowledge) is the most commonly used professional standard model in the world.   The main framework is a combination of 2 elements – Skills and Knowledge, among the above 3 factors.

Specific definition of competency framework: A competency framework is a guideline developed by an organization that sets specific competency, knowledge, and behavioral requirements to help employees successfully performce  their jobs.

In it it should be emphasized several points:

– “Developed by the organization”: The competency framework must be developed by  the organization that uses it, not copied or reused by  another organization because each business has its own values  , environment and work culture.

– “Specific behavior”: This is also the difference between a competency framework and a job description.  Both describe what the employee is required to do on the job, but the job description is a general summary of the Knowledge, Skills, and Attitudes expectations required for the job;   while the competency framework provides specific Behaviors in the role, responsibilities that a position must perform.

How to build a competency framework?

The framework consists of 3 parts:

– Core Competencies

– Professional competencies

– General competencies

In particular, each set of competencies will consist of 3 parts:

– Competency definition

– Description of behavior

– Decentralization of competencies

Of the above 3 competencies, the set of professional competencies is considered the most time-consuming to build, and at the same time the most difficult to replicate, because it requires the Board of Directors and department heads to be directly involved  in the construction and regular updates. The most important set of competencies is the core competency –  which   is considered as a guideline to guide thinking and action for the entire organization.

Core Competencies

Definition: Core competencies are competencies that create competitive advantages  and differentiate a business from competitors.

Characteristics of core competencies:

– Different, hard to copy

– Gives the company access to more than just one market

– Add value to a company’s product or service

– Create culture and attach to the core values of the company

Example of a core set of competencies:

– Honourable

– Creative

– Digital thinking

– Bravery

Note: The core competency set must be accompanied by a definition for the concept given,  in order to unify a common mindset for the entire organization, so that whether 20 or 2000 employees have a way of understanding it. (E.g. ”  What does “bravery” mean in the above set of competencies? – Each organization will have its own way of defining it.)

Professional competencies

Definition: Professional competence describes the in-depth, specific knowledge in a particular area needed to complete the job.   Without these competencies, it would be impossible to ensure the professionalism of the job position.

Example: Professional competence – IT industry

– IT infrastructure

– Programming languages

– System maintenance

– Network architecture

– Cybersecurity

– Networking

– New technology

– Operating systems

– Programming

– Data storage…

How to apply a competency framework to improve performance

After complete construction, businesses can start applying the competency framework in recruitment assessment, as well as developing a personnel training plan.   For example, the competency framework of position A consists of 3 competencies, so for each specific competency, managers can set standard levels (Examples 1-4)  and “Minimum” milestones and “Expectations” of the company.

For recruitment activities, the competency framework supports managers to evaluate   and  screen candidates who are more suitable and optimal for the development of the company.  Often, in  the absence of a specific competency framework, employers tend  to  focus more on the candidate’s attitude than skill or knowledge, and assume that attitude will determine the ability to learn and improve competencies in the long run.   This is not wrong, but it will slow the company down.

Hiring people when incompetent means lowering commitments to customers. When applying the competency framework as a criterion for evaluating candidates, enterprises can identify candidates who meet the “Expectations” standard, eliminate candidates who do not meet the “Minimum” standard, thereby balancing all 3 factors of Skills – Knowledge – Attitude of the team and protecting the competitiveness of the company.

For training, the competency framework is the foundation for managers or L&D departments to develop accurate and personalized training plans for each employee.  Specifically, when comparing the level of  competency required by the company with the actual level of personnel and multiplying by the weight  of importance, managers  can find out the capacity gap of the team, what is the point to improve, the point of  promotion,   and come up with an optimal training plan with a budget.

Mistakes to avoid when building a framework

Assign the task of building a competency framework for the Human Resources department

When it comes to building a competency framework for the organization, many people think that this is in the service of Recruitment – Training, thus “leaving” this entire task to the Board of Directors and  the Human Resources department, resulting in a situation where implementation takes a long   time  ,   or the competency framework does not match practice.

In fact, the Board of Directors and the Human Resources department only have enough capacity to build a set of Core Competencies and General Competencies.  For the Ministry of Professional Competence belongs to each functional department , it is necessary to have the participation of the heads of ministries concerned.   Not only designing and building, but also joining hands to communicate and guide training for the organization.

Given that the business is small, it does not need a competency framework

Normally, small businesses (less than 30 employees) often only have a  business center, have not invested in building system processes. When the organization “swells”, building a framework becomes a burden, partly because there is no formal knowledge, partly because  there is no organizational  chart as the foundation for building.

The early start of the framework will help clarify the path to promotion, support retention and training for redundant team development.

Only build the framework once and consider it complete, no need to update changes

In the set of 3 types of competencies, the core competency set is a guideline associated with the roots of organizational culture, so it should be maintained and maintained.   For 2 sets of general competencies and professional competencies, the organization is updated regularly to meet the changing of the  school and the recruitment and training needs.

For example, with the transformation of the HR management model from the previous access model (65% focusing a lot of resources on HR) to the modern Strategy model (with 60% focusing on operations to improve employee experience), the HR specialist’s competency framework accordingly needs to change to meet the goal.

In the past, the professional competence of an HR employee could be just statistics, bookkeeping management, now, it needs to be replaced by the ability to apply technology, use timekeeping parts, automatic payroll.  Or at a higher level, for example, HRBP positions require business literacy, revenue statement reading, and   data-driven decision-making.

Competency framework is not a new concept or a task that is too difficult to approach in the field of Human Resources.  However, developing and applying the right framework requires a process that leaders, including the board of directors and   departments, need to sit down, understand its value and work together.