Important Milestone: Competencies for Competitiveness

In a previous post the table below was suggested as a framework to build the competency requirements of the organisation.   

	Technical	Soft Skills	Management	Company In house Systems and Procedures
Aware
Basic
Operational
Expert

Each column needs to be unpacked so that an individual company can select those competencies which are key to its competitiveness.

Some experience and more research have suggested the following “menus”:

Technical	Soft Skills	Management	Company in house Systems and Procedures: Role Specific
Contract Management	Strategic thinking	Enterprise Management	Accounting/ Finance
Compliance Management	Critical thinking	Group Management	Inventory
Risk Management	Thinking agility	Business Management	Payroll
Intellectual Property Management	Decision making	Functional Management	Customer Relationship Management
Logistics/  Return Logistics Management	Problem solving	Manage Managers	International Logistics
Financial Management	Negotiation	Manage Others	Statutory Compliance
Marketing Management	Emotional intelligence	Manage Self	End user computing (e.g. Microsoft Office etc.)
Warehouse Management	Self awareness
Procurement and Materials Management	Self-belief
Financial Management	Self-promotion
Human Capital Management	Stress management
	Communication
	Presentation / public speaking
	Technical writing
	Facilitating
	Mentoring / coaching
	Active listening
	Interviewing
	Selling
	Quality client service
	Team work
	Conflict resolution
	Networking/ Collaboration
	Cross-cultural intelligence

Each business is different: every company maintains and grows its competitiveness in different ways.

Now comes the interesting part:

• These menus need to be verified in terms of our own organisation. Best recommendation is to workshop. 
• Copy and paste these menus on to as many separate documents as there are position in the organisation. Then, for each position, tick off the competencies needed and ADD any which have been left out. These additions will most likely be needed under the “Technical” and “Company in house Systems and Procedures” pillars because these tend to be specific to a particular postion (i.e. role specific). There will be blurring between each pillar: this should not be a concern – what is more important is to capture all the competencies for each job under one of the pillars. Some of the competencies listed may need further unpacking (example: Warehouse Management may need to be specified in much more detail). There may well be competencies which have been listed here but which are not required. 
• The question which needs to be asked during these workshopping sessions is “In order for us to be as competitive as possible, what competencies does each person holding this position need?”
• In capturing these competencies try to ensure that, as far as possible, requirements do not only reflect the NOW of the position but what it will be in the next TWO TO THREE YEARS.
• Once all the competencies have been captured for each position, by indicating against each competency the LEVEL (Aware, Basic, Operational, Expert) at which that competency is required for that position, a competency profile for each position is created. 

This is an important milestone: the competency requirements have been objectively established for each position and they reflect our organisation.

Having obtained this vital information about the organisation, we need to find out, in future posts, how it can be used to turn our people into super performers. 

Does a methodology for creating competency hold values for your organisation?

If so, is it worth spending time in developing these?