How Do We Develop Competencies for Recruits in the Financial Services Sector?

How Do We Develop Competencies for Recruits in the Financial Services Sector?
[Workforce Management October 04, 2007]



As a financial services company, how could we devise useful competencies for our knowledge workers? Our new hires need basic courses in economics and some skills learning to use our customized econometrics model. We know what we're looking for in new recruits, but we don't know how to formally express it by way of competencies.
—Seeking Knowledge, advisor, financial services, Ottawa



Please forgive the slight jab, but in our view all workers today are (or need to be) "knowledge workers." I was reminded of that recently when I had to ask one of the housekeepers at a major hotel chain to help me set the clock radio in my room. Although English was not among her competencies, she was nonetheless a knowledge worker, so the clock was properly set, and I arose on time.

Your question's a good one because a) it's vitally important and b) there's a lot of junk floating around that would have us believe that "competencies" in the workplace are only for people with advanced degrees. That simply isn't so.

Achieving a tight connection between core business objectives and employee development and performance is vital, especially in labor-intensive organizations such as yours. Competencies—or "core competencies," as they are known in some circles—are nothing more than the knowledge, skill and ability factors upon which compensation professionals have long performed job analysis for pay-grading purposes.

What we're after is simply a clear understanding of the desired behaviors, and the key capabilities required to reliably produce those behaviors. A brief, albeit very basic, roadmap:

1. Start with one key job or job family.
2.With an eye toward broader business objectives, determine what good performance looks like for that position. What are the people actually doing, and achieving?
3. Confirm your findings by observing, and developing profiles of, a handful of acknowledged exemplars. Use people currently in jobs, because this can really change over time. Contrast your findings by similarly observing the knowledge, skills and behaviors of lower performers (although you needn't tell them they have been so identified).
4. Determine the three to six (no more) critical success factors associated with the desired level of performance. In other words, what are the most important things that people in this job must be able to do?
5. Evaluate the relative importance of each factor. You may find it helpful to weight the factors relative to one another on a simple arithmetic scale.
6. Determine the specific elements of knowledge, skill and ability that are essential to each of the aforementioned success factors. What you are after are core elements that can be observed, if not measured.

It will be essential for employees to move beyond basic courses in economics and learning to use your customized econometrics model. Must your employees, for example, understand the application of macroeconomics within an investment portfolio? Must they be able to communicate it orally to clients? Must they have knowledge of financial modeling? Must they have the ability to work successfully within a team environment?

If your aim is to use the identified competencies solely as a basis for recruiting, your next (and final) step is to construct candidate sourcing, screening and selection methods targeted to the identified competencies. In zeroing in on position competencies, please be careful not to exclude consideration for organizational "fit" requirements, as doing so could create a situation where you have a perfectly competent but miserable employee.

If you plan to use the identified competencies for development and evaluation purposes, you will likely want to take the process one step further by delineating (in writing) the relative levels of mastery for each competency.

As an additional resource, you may want to consider reading the book Building Robust Competencies: Linking Human Resource Systems to Organizational Strategies, by Paul C. Green.

[SOURCE: Bill Catlette, co-author, Contented Cows MOOve Faster , September 20, 2007.]