DS Cohen & Associates
Creating a Competency Management Process Based on Values
The year was 1987, as I entered the office of the Vice President of a major North American bank. I had recently executed a career change from education to management consulting, and my focus in education had been on behaviours and the impact of these behaviours in differentiating successful teachers from less successful ones. It was natural to focus the same context on employees in the world of business. I entered Jim’s office and began the exploration of demonstrating the desired behaviours in the workplace.
My pitch was based on the realization that people are hired because of their deduction and reported experiences, promoted for their on-the-job success, and fired because of their actual behaviours. Jim allowed me to explain more. At the end of the presentation, he smiled and said something that stayed with me. “Come back in about ten years when this bank might be ready for this concept.” He felt it was on target, but the concept would not be understood, and even some HR teams would resist it, let alone leadership.
The good news is there was an opportunity for a team coaching engagement that he had me facilitate, and we continued to work together. Eventually, behavioural competencies were introduced successfully and applied to the selection, performance management, and leadership development process based on 360˚ feedback specific to the company competencies.
Believe me, the experience of ‘selling’ leaders in HR on behavioural competencies in the late 80s was a tough go.
Competency Based Interviewing Reduced Turnover
Soon after the bank experience, I began working with a global organization struggling to hire and retain entry-level engineers. Working with them, we identified the behaviours demonstrated by the highly successful versus the moderately successful employee in the role. Using a full circle means of data collection and critical incident interviews, we met with managers, recruiters, and the incumbents who were considered the most successful individuals and another group of successful frontline users of their service. We created a long list of desirable behaviours by decoding the critical incidents recorded. To focus on the vital few criteria needed for success when beginning the job, we engaged people in validation to identify the desired behaviours for a highly successful entry-level engineer.
Having identified the critical behaviours for success, we created a structured behavioural interview guide and trained all hiring managers on conducting these structured behavioural interviews. Before this, the average number of new hires from college graduates was 33 people, but at the end of the year, about half had resigned. After conducting the structured behavioural interview based on the behaviours of highly successful incumbents, the company then hired 35 new entry-level engineers. At the end of year one, only three had resigned or were let go.
In the early to mid-90s, more companies began integrating behaviours into their selection systems. The positive pattern of successful hiring and retention reinforced that the process did, indeed, make a difference. At the global organization, managers, discovering they had hired better, asked if the process could help them conduct better performance reviews. The integration of the behaviours into performance management began to take hold.
The process worked, and more companies began to embrace behavioural competencies as more and more consulting firms came up with various means of creating behavioural competency models and dictionaries and integrating those behavioural competencies into all aspects of talent management.
As my work continued, the focus became more honed in on company culture and the development of behavioural attributes that depicted the authentic actions; it was able to draw a picture of a person truly living the values.
Discovering The Secret Sauce – Optimizing TM
Your behavioural competencies and value behaviours are the secret sauce when organizations seek to achieve excellence through building integrated talent management processes. Even with the right job-specific or job-family-specific skills, knowledge and behaviours, obstacles will still arise in executing people who come in situations with different values. To have a vigorous integrated competency management system, you must first establish the values that these behaviours integrate. Hiring for fit-to-values is the secret of a company’s success. It enhances bringing in employees seeking your specific employee experience, which in turn means they will have more positive levels of employee experience, which results in less effort to create a higher level of employee engagement.
Behavioural Competency Management provides a systematic and structured approach to talent management and development, aligning individual skills and behaviours with organizational goals and requirements. By clearly defining the key competencies and proficiency needed for success, the framework sets clear expectations and standards for performance. It guides the recruitment and selection processes, ensuring candidates possess the necessary skills and capabilities.
As my work continued, the focus shifted to the company culture and the development of behavioural attributes that depicted the authentic actions of the employees living the values. The first application of the values behaviours was applied to the selection process: hiring for fit to values, further enhancing the identification of the differences between equally qualified candidates. The process yielded not only hiring right the first time but also hiring people who embraced the employee experience and faster time to productivity.
Several years ago, I was working with the CEO of a senior living facilitates company. He was aiming to begin the integration of four different organizations that now formed a new company. We established that leadership would define the values and, more importantly, the accountable behaviours needed to be demonstrated in everyday integrations and all decision-making. The occupancy rate of the homes soon exceeded the industry average. In a conversation with investors, he would refer to having found the secret sauce, simply having employees in all locations and all levels living the values and holding one another to living the values. Work became a new kind of community.
Levelling the Playing Field for Promotions
Another example comes from a large police service that I was consulting. Before the inclusion of role-specific behavioural competencies and the values of the services, the promotional process was perceived, for the most part, as subjective. Traditionally, after the promotion board made their recommendations, the Chief had the right to make the final decisions, occasionally overruling the recommendations of the promotional board. After our work was complete, the service implemented a structured behavioural interview process for promotion using the defined competencies of each position, and there were no complaints of favouritism.
Before the selection process, I asked various sworn officers who would be promoted and who should get promoted. Most indicated there were several well-qualified female officers, but based on the police service’s history, they would not be promoted.
Integrating the behavioural competencies and the behaviours of the values into the structured behavioural interview process levelled the playing field, reduced biases, and resulted in equitable promotions. To their surprise, several capable female officers were selected.
Efforts to Integrate Values in TM (Integration of Values into Talent Management)
While many efforts for integration into all aspects of talent management continue, the promotional process, especially identifying high-potential employees, is still, for many, the Achilles’ heel. Too often, senior managers select HiPos based on criteria other than the competencies for a more senior job and rely solely on the person’s current performance review. The problem arises from the fact that competencies for the more senior role are not aligned with the employee’s current competencies.
The behaviours of the values should always be the first consideration. There are critical reasons the values need to be considered first. If the person identified as a HiPo does not already live the values, they will not suddenly decide to demonstrate them. These aren’t learned overnight. Since their coworkers already know the person doesn’t live the values, their identification as a HiPo sends a silent message to all other employees that getting ahead in the company doesn’t require living the values. By excluding the values in the HiPo selection process and the senior promotional decisions, integrating the values into the other aspects of talent management diminishes the value of values. The process must be holistic and complete throughout the employee talent management life cycle.
The Benefits of an Integrated TM Process
What are the benefits of building an integrated talent management process, including the behavioural competencies and values behaviours? You can positively impact one or more of the following activities:
- Improved Operational Efficiency
- Reduced Downtime
- More accurate Problem-Solving
- Enhanced Quality and Safety
- A Safer Workplaces (physically and psychologically)
- Better and more focused individualized development
- Mutual Respect and Trust – because the right thing to do becomes predictable
- Faster and More Accurate Assignments for special projects
- Enhanced Customer Care
- Increased Employee Satisfaction and Retention
However, if the value behaviours are not authentic to the organization, created in the language (jargon) of the employees, and rooted in the critical incidents of the past, the values will not have authentic behavioural descriptors. Since I began my work suggesting behavioural competencies could impact people’s on-the-job performance, resulting in improved business results, the application has proven correct. The plethora of approaches to creating behavioural statements and different models is a subject for another article.
One final word of caution:
In this emerging age of AI and the focus on technology to automate human resources activities from payroll to performance management to promotions, many have followed the software firm’s lead, including the behavioural competency model and talent management activity guidelines the software company has embedded in their programs. Even if the HRIS program allows for customization, companies frequently do not include the behaviours that define their values. One of the HR keys to success is to optimize and personalize the processes to resolve talent issues. To make informed and fact-based people decisions without integrating the thread of the values as talent moves through the company means decisions are being made on an incomplete and less-than-accurate foundation. The values are the red thread that connects all talent activities. TM will not generate the accurate objectives that the HRIS is supposed to promise without integrating the values and having final decisions made by humans.
Your turn
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David Cohen is completing his second book on how to hire for fit to values/culture. His first book is called The Talent Edge. He has conducted workshops globally on Structured Behavioural Interviewing. For more information on the workshop, please contact David.
