Choosing Your Competency Framework:

Ensuring Success with the Right

Content, Tools & Services
Table of Contents:

Determining Your Needs 3

• Build vs. Buy 3
• Key Decision Points 4

The HRSG Approach to Competencies 7

• Our Methodology: How Do We Build Competencies? 7
• HRSG’s Competency Framework 8
• What Do Our Competencies Look Like? 11
• Competency Profiles — Putting Competencies into Action on Jobs 12

Using Competency Content Effectively Throughout the

Talent Lifecycle 14
• Bring Real Structure to Your Hiring and Selection Process 15
• Perform Regular Assessments Throughout an Employees’ Tenure 15
• Map and Assign Learning Resources to Continue Employees’ Development
Programs16
• Allow Your People to Build Career Paths 17

Why Choose HRSG? 18

• A Flexible Approach to Content 18
• High Quality, Substantial Depth 18
• Our Service Commitment 18
• Providing the Right Purpose-Built Tools to Mobilize Your Project 18
• Here’s What Others Are Saying 19

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —2—

Determining Your Needs
If you’re reading this guide, you probably already know the basics of competencies1. You also
probably have a challenge within your organization that competencies can help address.

Regardless of the specific challenge that you’re looking to address, we have found that there are a
few crucial decision points to guide your selection of a solution provider.

Build vs. Buy

For the purposes of this guide, we’re assuming with content that has been developed and
that you have made the decision to purchase a validated by competency professionals, and
competency solution rather than building your that can be used “off the shelf” to support your
own competencies from scratch. But just in roll out. This approach requires significantly
case you’re still mulling over your options, here’s less budget than is required to build
a quick recap on the advantage of using a pre- competencies from scratch.
built framework.
At the end of the day, even if your organization
Purchasing a competency framework — which is highly unique and specialized, you’re pretty
typically includes a comprehensive competency likely to save time, resources and budget by
dictionary and the competency models (or purchasing a framework and customizing the
profiles) for jobs — provides an organization competencies to fit your needs.

1
(if you need more info on the basics of competencies, be sure to check out our Competency Toolkit which includes our
Competencies 101 resource.)

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —3—

Key Decision Points
If you’ve decided to use a pre-built solution,
it’s time to start looking at vendors. There are
a limited number of organizations competing
in this space, but even still, it can be difficult
terrain to wade through for HR and talent
management professionals.

From our 30 years of experience in the

competency industry, most decisions come down
to a few key factors. Let’s take a look at those.

Are you looking for skill-based Single-level or multi-level?

competencies vs. behavioral? If you’re looking to use competencies as a
Some vendors promote lists of skills as checklist (“this person has the skills for the
“competencies.” For most serious players in job”), then single-level competencies may be
the competency landscape, competencies good enough for your needs. But in the vast
consist of not just skills, but the knowledge, majority of organizations, different jobs and
skills and abilities critical to effective job levels require different levels of skills,
performance in any job. knowledge and abilities.

Behavioral competencies outperform other skill- Breaking a competency into progressive

based approaches because they enable you to levels of proficiency provides more accuracy
describe not just what an employee is expected and allows managers and employees to see
to do on the job, but how they can be successful how a competency is expressed differently
doing it. Unlike skill statements, behavioral depending on the amount of experience, skill,
competencies also provide a deeper level of and aptitude required for a particular job. This
observable criteria that enables them to be additional detail provides a shared language
used to assess and develop people across the during discussions about performance and
entire employee lifecycle. greater accuracy when talking about specific
workplace behaviors and expectations.
By incorporating a combination of behavioral
competencies—competencies describing the One of the great advantages of HRSG’s multi-
general behaviors required to perform effectively level competencies is their ability to create
in a range of jobs—and technical competencies— consistency and continuity across the talent
competencies describing the application lifecycle. This ultimately results in greater
of knowledge and skills needed to perform buy-in from employees due to the clarity the
effectively in a specific role or group of jobs—we competencies provide to close skill gaps and
offer a highly targeted solution to help our client achieve development goals.
reflect both the “soft skills” and “know-how”
needed for successful job performance.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —4—

Do you need content that works in Will you need to customize the
tandem with the competencies? competencies?
Competencies can obviously be valuable Determining whether you need, or want to
content on their own, but their impact is customize the competencies and job profiles
maximized when there is additional material for your organizational context is another area
available to support roll-out of competencies of consideration, and not all providers equip you
across the employee lifecycle. Vendors will with the tools, or even the permission, to do so.
provide different content or services to support
One of the key benefits of being able to
implementation, so it is critical to understand
customize the competency content is to
where you want to implement competencies.
help employees see the relevance of the
For example, if your organization has competencies to their current, or future jobs.
experienced the high costs associated with a With many clients, isolating the changes to a
bad hire, you may want to look for a vendor that common set of core competencies that apply to
offers competency-based interview questions as all jobs in the organization is more than sufficient
part of the offering. If employee performance is in gaining the buy-in from stakeholders.
an area of concern, learning objectives mapped
HRSG recognizes that jobs and organizations
to competencies will likely be a requirement for
are unique. Our competencies can be easily
your program.
customized to match your needs, and we
HRSG’s offerings also include plenty of “wrap- provide you with the tools to easily manage
around” content. This includes easy-assembly and update this content. By adapting off-the-
interview guides based on the competencies, shelf competencies, you not only benefit from
mapped learning resources, job descriptions with the cost savings associated with developing
embedded AI-mapped competencies, and much competencies from scratch, but you are able to
more. This “wrap-around” content significantly reflect your organization’s unique perspective
increases the use that you’ll get out of your and culture into the language used in the
competency investment on a day-to-day basis. behavioral indicators.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —5—

Tools and support
Research has shown that two of the top barriers
to successfully rolling out competencies is
the lack of internal know-how in competency
management and lack of technology. If you are
not a competency expert, look for a vendor who
can provide the tools and support that you need
to help navigate these sometimes-complex
projects, and manage your content over time.

CompetencyCore by HRSG gives you control

over your competency initiative with purpose-
built tools designed to make your life easier.
Supported by a team of competency experts,
HRSG clients get access to advisors who can
ensure your initiative is set up for success and
caution against common pitfalls.

Client spotlight:
Building competency profiles quickly for an
entire organization Hear it from the client:
Adaptavist used CompetencyCore’s included The tool made it easy for me to
competency libraries as the basis for developing customize the competencies and drop
their organization’s accurate, highly relevant
competency profiles. HRSG’s tools significantly them into the libraries, drop them into
accelerated the process of building and the roles really quickly.
customizing competencies, linking them
with roles and building an organizational — Neil Penny, L&D Consultant,
competency hierarchy. Adaptavist

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —6—

The HRSG Approach to Competencies
Our Methodology: How Do We Build Competencies?
HRSG’s competencies are a product of thousands Through extensive literature search, review of
of hours of research by competency experts. best practices, and job analysis conducted with
client organizations, HRSG’s competencies
This internal knowledge is built on 30 years of have been validated across a broad range of
experience in the competency consulting and occupations and industries. Additionally, our
development fields. Our confidence in our content content is regularly refined over time to ensure
comes from the thorough process that we have its continued relevance and to accurately reflect
honed and perfected over those three decades. changes in the real-world labor market.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —7—

HRSG’s Competency Framework
HRSG offers a comprehensive competency solution that covers the range of behavioral and technical
knowledge, skills and abilities for jobs in virtually any work environment. Updates to our competency
dictionary are released on an annual basis to reflect emerging trends in the workforce.

HRSG’s Competencies

Universal competencies Technical competencies

These ‘general’, or ‘behavioral’ Technical competencies describe the application of knowledge
competencies articulate the and skills needed for success in specialized fields.
softer, natural or inherent
Examples:
behaviors of your employees.
P Business Development (a technical competency for sales
Examples:
professionals)
P Attention to Detail P Fraud Detection and Control (a technical competency for
P Client Focus accounting & finance professionals)
P Emotional Intelligence P Database Administration (a technical competency for IT
P Managing Conflicts professionals)
P Problem Solving
Leadership competencies
Leadership competencies capture the essence of effective
leaders and translate it into measurable behaviors.

Examples:

P Acting with Empathy and Compassion

P Inspiring Others

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —8—

How do we choose competencies to build?
Universal competencies

HRSG has identified five key categories that we look to ensure coverage on through our universal
competencies. We’ve established these five key dimensions as being essential for effective
performance in the modern world of work.

Category Definition Example Competencies

Thinking The cognitive aspect of performance. • Analytical Thinking

Competencies related to understanding, • Creativity and Innovation
analyzing, and processing information, as well • Decision Making
as solving problems and making decisions • Data Literacy
based on that information. • Problem Solving

Achieving The operational aspect of performance. • Managing Resources

Competencies related to initiating work, • Facilitation
managing and organizing resources, executing, • Planning and Organizing
and accomplishing work goals or objectives. • Quality Focus

Influencing The interpersonal aspect of performance. • Impact and Influence

Competencies related to connecting with • Fostering Communication
people, motivating them, and growing them. • Negotiating
• Networking
• Partnering

Becoming The personal aspect of performance. • Adaptability

Competencies related to an individual’s • Agility
application of personal resources, adapting, • Attention to Detail
coping, and demonstrating ethics and integrity. • Continuous Learning
• Resilience

Applying Competencies that involve applying technical • Account Management

knowledge, skills, and abilities within the • Store Operations
context of an occupation or profession. This • Architecture
category subsumes HRSG’s occupation- • Database Design and
specific technical competencies. Management

© HRSG | All rights reserved. —9—

Technical competencies

HRSG has developed a standardized set of corporate technical competencies covering these primary
business functions:

• Sales • Business Operations

• Marketing • Cyber Security
• Accounting & Finance • Retail
• HR • Data Analytics
• IT

The competencies are selected to ensure coverage across common business skills required to run
businesses today. They are regularly reviewed and updated to ensure they align with market needs.

Additional industry-specific technical competencies are also available (eg. Agile Development, Cyber
Security, Insurance, etc.), which have been scoped and built over time based on client requests and
demands from the market.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 10 —

What Do Our Competencies Look Like?

Here’s the breakdown of a sample HRSG competency:

1 The competency definition provides a high-level description of the competency.

2 The proficiency scale provides multiple proficiency levels for each competency. Each level
reflects a progression from a basic demonstration of the competency towards a more complex
and strategic demonstration. For example, an entry-level employee may need to demonstrate
level 1 proficiency, while an executive may need to demonstrate level 4 or 5.
Proficiency scales help you compare requirements across jobs, which is especially useful when
determining potential career paths within the organization.

3 The notion for each level provides a high-level summary of the overall theme identified for that
proficiency level.

4 A behavioral indicator provides a clear description of the observable behaviors that an employee
will demonstrate on the job.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 11 —

Competency Profiles — Putting Competencies into Action on Jobs
The start point for any competency initiative is There are three basic criteria that competency
a valid competency profile (sometimes referred structures must meet:
to as a competency model) that supports all
1. The competency profile includes the
intended HR goals. A competency profile is
competencies that employees must have,
a selection of competencies with specified
both now and in the future, to ensure your
proficiency levels required for successful
organization can achieve its vision and
performance in a particular job.
support its values;
At HRSG, we define our competency profiles as 2. The competency profiles must support all of
the set of competencies, complete with the levels the intended HR applications; and
of proficiency required for success in a particular 3. All competency profiles must be easy to use
job or role. Whereas some vendors in the space by all stakeholders.
may focus more on a skill-based approach to
competencies, HRSG’s competency profiles
consist of a broader combination of observable
abilities, skills, knowledge, motivations or traits
defined in terms of the behaviors needed for
successful job performance.

Client spotlight:
Launching projects more quickly than you ever Hear it from the client:
thought possible
We wanted it to be easy for us to
First Commerce Credit Union used HRSG’s pre- manage in human resources and get
built content to get their career pathing initiative
off the ground incredibly quickly. To do this, they
launched, as well as be really user-
relied on CompetencyCore, with its draft job friendly on the other side so our team
descriptions + embedded competency profiles. members wouldn’t be afraid to jump
From there, it’s simply a matter of getting the on board and get involved. Finding a
users into the software, mapping everything
appropriately, and giving them the power to build package that hit those points was
their own competency-driven career paths. The very important to us.
combination of the right content and the perfect
software tools made HRSG the first choice for — Donna Moran, Culture Champion, First
the team at First Commerce. Commerce Credit Union

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 12 —

Sample competency profile

Account Executive

The Account Executive maintains the relationship between the customer and the company,
and strives to build new business wherever possible.

Competencies

Account Management (Level 3)

• Generates revenue by developing business relationships with customers through telephone and
face-to-face meetings.
• Controls revenue by maximizing profits through pricing strategies, margin control and mitigating customer loss.
• Manages sales pipeline from the proposal stage through customer acceptance and implementation.

Managing the Sales Process (Level 3)

• Evaluates the effectiveness of the sales process to recommend improvement.
• Facilitates/leads the sales process by mapping it to customer responses.
• Adapts the organization’s sales process to the size, type and style of customer.
• Utilizes customer profile information to develop account strategy and relationships.
• Deploys all available resources to maximize both organization return-on-investment and customers’ desired
financial results.

Business Development (Level 3)

• Represents the organization in face-to-face meetings with customers.
• Connects with multiple contacts within the prospective customer’s buying process.
• Qualifies the right product/services solution to fit the customer’s needs.
• Uses differing sources of information to develop quotes and proposals.

Partnering (Level 3)
• Captures opportunities to partner, identifying existing opportunities and creating new ones.
• Assesses the value of entering into partnerships in terms of achieving short- and long-term goals.
• Initiates partnerships and alliances that promote organizational objectives.

Client Focus (Level 3)

• Looks for ways to add value beyond clients' immediate requests.
• Addresses the unidentified, underlying and long-term client needs.
• Enhances client service delivery systems and processes.
• Anticipates clients' upcoming needs and concerns.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 13 —

Using Competency Content Effectively
Throughout the Talent Lifecycle

Hire Assess Develop Engage/Retain

Competency-based selection, development and descriptions powerful competency profiles that

retention programs can provide huge benefits to foster practical day-to-day applications for your
organizations who can implement them properly. competency architecture. CompetencyCore’s
But mobilizing them effectively throughout exclusive Competency Suggestion Engine
the talent lifecycle has, in the past, been a allows you to do this with the click of a mouse.
big challenge for some organizations. Today, Click here to watch our video overview.
that’s all changed. Developments in cloud-
With your competency-embedded job descriptions
based software, like HRSG’s CompetencyCore,
in place, you have the power to truly operationalize
have made it accessible to functionally use
your company’s competencies throughout the
competencies across the talent lifecycle.
entire talent management lifecycle. Here’s a brief
A typical process starts with mapping look at how that works.
competencies to your company’s job
descriptions. This process gives your job

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 14 —

Bring Real Structure to Your Hiring and Selection Process
Carry out structured, behavioral interviews, using the “STAR” method (asking the candidate to
describe the situation, task, action, and result) to assess candidate-job fit.

Because the interview is based directly on the competencies, it keeps interviews more objective
and planted in reality. Most importantly, hiring decisions are made based on consistent and
standardized criteria.

The structure of behavioral interview questions

Question 1: Creativity and Innovation — Level 3 Competency name and definition

Generating viable, new approaches and solutions.

Question:

Describe the most complex problem that you were faced with and how
you generated a new approach or explanation or solution.
Job specific question

• What was the problem?

• What was complex about it?
• What new approach or explanation did you come up with? Probes to help elicit greater
• What was new about it? specificity from candidates
• How did this benefit your work (or the work of others)?

What to look for:

Identifies new approaches.
• Creates new ideas, solutions or approaches to ongoing challenges.
• Uses unconventional areas as sources of inspiration and insight Behavioral indicators to look for
into new options and solutions. the specific competency at the
• Solves complex problems through developing new explanations required level of proficiency
or applications.

1 2 3 4 5
Well Below Standard Below Standard Meets Standard Above Standard Well Above Standard

Rating scale

Perform Regular Assessments Throughout an Employees’ Tenure

Later on in the employee’s tenure, HR or department managers can carry out assessments — again,
all linked back to that original job description and those competencies required from the role.
Competencies make self assessments and supervisor assessments really easy — you don’t have to
create assessment questions, just turn the competencies into questions that people rate themselves
against. So in a development context, they function as a lightweight assessment mechanism; all
enabled and implemented easily through the software.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 15 —

Map and Assign Learning Resources to Continue Employees’
Development Programs
Adding another layer to how competencies can be used in the development section of your HR
programs, CompetencyCore gives managers and administrative personnel the tools to help
employees improve their skills on their own accord; if competency gaps are identified during one
of those aforementioned assessments, the organization can provide employees with learning
resources pre-mapped to competencies to develop and strengthen those gaps.

Example list of learning resources

Name Provider Source Link Bookmark

Becoming a Resilient Person — The

Science of Stress Management
Clayton Cook edX.org
Agility (level 1)

Agile Development in Practice (Project-

centered Course) University of
Coursera.org
Virginia
Agility (level 2 & 3)

A Crash Course in Data Science

Johns Hopkins
Coursera.org
Data Literacy (level 1) University

Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel

Microsoft edX.org
Data Literacy (level 3)

21 Day Crash Course in Emotional

Intelligence Dr. Patricia
Udemy.com
Thompson
Emotional Intelligence (level 1 & 2)

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 16 —

Allow Your People to Build Career Paths
One of the most powerful motivators to keep top employees engaged is opportunities for growth.
With your competencies mapped to every job, there’s total transparency on exactly what skills and
behaviors, at what levels, your people need to demonstrate in order to take their next step (or even
reach their dream job).

CompetencyCore by HRSG empowers you, the busy HR professional, to

put these programs into place at your organization with the confidence
that you’re setting things up the smart way.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 17 —

Why Choose HRSG?
You’ve got options when you’re looking for a provider to help with your competency initiative. We
know that, and we know that we’re not the biggest company out there. We also know that for the
companies that we’ve worked with, we’ve been their best option. Here are some of the common
themes we’ve heard from organizations that have worked with us in the past.

A Flexible Approach to Content

Our competency philosophy is to provide our
clients with the most accurate, relevant, battle-
tested competency content available on the
market. But we don’t insist that we know the
intricacies of your business better than you do.
That’s why we not only allow customization of
our content, but we actually fully encourage it.

High Quality, Substantial Depth Providing the Right Purpose-

The more relevant your competency content is Built Tools to Mobilize Your
to the people who are on the front lines, the more
effective the uptake will be. HRSG’s technical
Project
competencies provide unparalleled insights As our competency-based consulting
into the real skills that employees in technical business continued to grow into the mid
positions need to succeed, with the right 2000s, our clients started to request easier
balance between essential and exhaustive. ways to manage competency content on an
ongoing basis. Gone were the days of thick
Our Service Commitment binders and filing cabinets. HRSG was one of
the first organizations to offer competency
HRSG occupies a unique space in the
management software — at first, upon custom
competency industry; we’ve been around for
requests for clients — and today in the form
long enough to have virtually seen it all, yet we
of CompetencyCore, our leading software tool
remain nimble enough to give your project the
available to all organizations.
support it deserves.
Our software has evolved to help you implement
This personal attention and dedication has been
competency-based approaches with a fraction
a contributing factor in the success of thousands
of the resources previously required. Our AI-
of competency projects we’ve worked on over the
powered processes slash the time required
years, and helped our clients overcome many of
to undertake competency-profiling activities,
the common pitfalls that can afflict competency
and our AI-generated job descriptions and
implementation projects.
competency profiles ensure you are starting with
job data based on latest labor market trends.

© HRSG | All rights reserved. — 18 —

Here’s What Others Are Saying

With HRSG competencies, there’s a One of the best things to come out of this
specific set of behaviors that make it competency project was that we now
clear. We can create interview questions have a common language to talk about
around these competencies, and we can performance, development, etc. When
talk to people about where they need to be we have discussions between departments
in their jobs, or what they need to move to they go a lot more smoothly and we achieve
the next proficiency level for the next job. more because we’re all on the same page
It makes it very easy. as to what constitutes success.
— Tracey Piper, Director of Human — Mr. Thamer Al Quadaimi, Executive
Resources - Talent Management at Manager of Learning and Talent
Destination XL (DXL) Development at ELM

Work with the Experts

Schedule a 1:1 chat with one of HRSG’s
competency experts to get started.

Chat with HRSG

About HRSG
For three decades, HRSG has delivered products and services to define talent needs, address skill deficiencies
and improve individual and organizational performance.

Our Products division has distilled that 30 years of expertise into a competency, job description and career
management software solution. Leveraging the power of AI, CompetencyCore™ is unlike any other product on the
market, bringing together the power of competencies and the utility of job descriptions.

Our Talent Management Solutions division delivers best practice professional services in competency-based
management, testing and assessment. In addition, we train HR professionals worldwide in our competency-
based management methodologies.

To learn more about how HRSG makes HR professionals proactive and in-control, visit us at
www.hrsg.ca or call 1-866-574-7041 x600.

© Human Resource Systems Group. All rights reserved.

Tel: 1-866-574-7041 www.hrsg.ca info@hrsg.ca