Competency Management Done Right

A smarter way to develop and implement an effective competency management framework with less time and cost

Managing Competency

The future of a large multinational corporation is heavily dependant on the competencies of its top management. Top level personnel with the appropriate abilities, skills, knowledge, motivations and traits can propel a corporation into its golden era. However, those who do not fit the profile could result in the corporation losing out in today’s ultra-competitive business environment.

With so much at stake, the process of defining, assessing and managing the job competencies of top management becomes more crucial than ever. Hence, large multinational corporations need a good Competency Management Framework (CMF).

Ideally, a comprehensive CMF will accurately map out the job competency profiles or content of senior management positions. The content is essential for selecting the right candidates for the job. Based on the content, competency assessment tools will be developed to identify existing competency gaps. Thereafter, the HR department will draw up a learning plan through training needs analysis in order to bridge these competency gaps.

Through the CMF, training budgets in line with corporate goals can be established. Such an approach will definitely enhance the efficiency and cost effectiveness of managing human capital in a corporation.

Lack of Accurate Content

In reality, the truth is far from that. Most CMF in many large corporations are drawn up manually. In some cases, broad assumptions are made to produce patchwork content for top management positions.

Such a shallow approach combined with the lack of qualitative measures often result in misrepresentation of the content. Therein, assessments made based on this content will be inaccurate, making identifying competency gaps ineffective.

Consequently, training needs cannot be pinpointed. This will in turn waste the corporation’s resources and time in providing the wrong training. Such a vicious cycle can cripple the top management’s ability to lead a corporation effectively.

Cost and Time

Many large corporations have opted to hire HR consultants to develop a CMF. These corporations often wind up spending hundreds and thousands of ringgit in consultant fees and are unable to justify the project’s ROI to its investors and shareholders.

The other option is to develop a CMF internally. Considering the project’s complexity and the heavy HR workload in a large corporation, the HR division will neither have the time nor resources to complete such a daunting task effectively.

Comprehensive CMF Solutions

SandFil offers a complete CMF package that includes job competency profiling and competency assessment solutions. The profiling solution creates a set of detailed and relevant content. Based on this content, in-depth, accurate and timely assessment reports can be produced using the competency assessment solutions.

With the content creation and competency assessment tools in hand, the HR division will be able to find the right candidates for the top level jobs as well as identify competency gaps accurately to establish precise learning plans and realistic training budgets.

Such comprehensive suite of solutions can save corporations hundreds and thousands of ringgit in consultation fees to develop the content. It will also save valuable time to develop the system from scratch besides giving a faster rate of return on investment.

With the availability of complete and comprehensive job competency profiles, large multinationals in Malaysia and the Asia Pacific region  will be able to develop the most cost effective and efficient CMF solutions.

Wilson Ten is the founder and executive director of SandFil International (M) Sdn. Bhd., the leading competency-based talent management company. For more information, visit www.sandfil.com.