چکيده: هدف مقاله حاضر، بررسي مفاهيم کليدي مديريت شايستگي و ارائه چارچوبي براي توسعه روش شايستگي است که بدين منظور ويژگيهاي مديريت شايستگي را از 22 سيستم مديريت شايستگي و 18 سيستم مديريت يادگيري بررسي مي کند. يافته هاي پژوهش حاکي از آن است که زمينه هاي استاندارد باز (ازجمله XML) ، فناوريهاي در حال ايفاي يک نقش مهم در تکامل سيستم هاي مديريت شايستگي هستند. مقاله بر ويژگيهاي سودمند مديريت يادگيري براي سازمانهاي خصوصي و دولتي تاکيد دارد.


مقدمه
مديريت شايستگي يک موضوع پژوهشي مهم در زمينه مديريت دانش است و يک سيستم مديريت شايستگي اغلب با سيستم هاي مديريت ياد گيري آميخته است. مديريت شايستگي به لحاظ اينکه دانش کليدي مورد نياز يک کارمند يا يک سازمان را براي دستيابي به اهدافش تعيين مي کند، مي تواند سهم مهمي در سطح سازماني و فردي داشته باشد. مديريت شايستگي و مهارتها ، شديداً به تلاشهاي سازمان براي ايجاد مجموعه اي جهت توانمندسازي نيروي کاري به منظور افزايش مزيت رقابتي ، نوآوري و اثر بخشي، وابسته شده است. به علاوه‌، مديريت شايستگي مستقيماً‌ با تلاشهاي موسسه براي گسترش دانش داخلي و استقرار عمليات مديريت دانش سازگاربا عمليات موسسه ، مربوط است. مديريت شايستگي اخيرا به يک زمينه تحقيقي تبديل شده است که تلاشهاي سازمان را به سوي توسعه پرورش کارکنان، اشتراک دانش، تلاشهاي يادگيري الکترونيک موسسه و همينطور کاربردهاي فناوريهاي معنايي نظير مديريت هستي شناسي جلب مي کند.
هدف ما در مقاله حاضر ، مروري بر متداولترين و گسترده ترين سيستم هاي مديريت شايستگي است تا کاربردهاي مشخص اين سيستم‌ها را بررسي وجهت دهيهاي پژوهشي آينده را ارائه کنيم.


تعاريف
رويکرد شايستگي در مديريت منابع انساني رويکرد جديدي نيست . رومي‌هاي قديم ، شکلي از شايستگي را در تلاشي براي ارائه ويژگيهاي يک " سرباز خوب رومي "به‌کار بردند. معرفي رويکردهاي مبتني بر شايستگي در محيط سازمان ، از حدود سال 1970 شروع شده و از آن زمان به بعد ، توسعه و کاربرد سريعي داشته است . ديويد مک کللند ،‌روانشناس برجسته دانشگاه هاروارد ، در توصيف ايده " شايستگي " در ادبيات منابع انساني معروف است .
 
او بعداً استدلال کرد که آزمونهاي سنتي هوش ‌و همينطور شرايط ديگري مثل مدرک تحصيلي ، براي پيشگويي عملکرد شغلي محکوم به شکست هستند . استدلالهاي مک کللند در مخالفت با نارضايتي فزاينده با آزمون هوش و استعداد و رويکردهاي سنتي تجزيه و تحليل شغل براي انتخاب کارکنان، طرحي براي آزمون شايستگي بود . او به‌عنوان يک مورد کاوي ، انتخاب افسرهاي اطلاعات امور خارجه را مورد آزمون قرار داد. مک کللند در پژوهش خود ، به اين نتيجه رسيد که شايستگيهايي نظير حساسيتهاي ميان فردي، ملاحظات مثبت بين فرهنگي و مهارتهاي مديريتي ، مقامات ارشد را از افسرهاي اطلاعاتي معمولي متمايز مي کند.
در طي چندسال ثابت شد که رويکردهاي مبتني بر شايستگي ، به عنوان ابزاري مهم در بيشتر کارکردهاي سازماني‌، نظير برنامه ريزي نيروي انساني ،طرح جانشيني و ارزيابي عملکرد به شمارمي آيد.
دلايل اصلي براي انتخاب اين رويکردها به صورت زير است :
_ آنها مي توانند معيارهاي تشخيص مهارتها، دانش ، رفتارها و قابليتهاي لازم براي ارضاي نيازهاي فعلي و آينده انتخاب کارکنان را فراهم کنند.
_ آنها مي توانند طرحهاي توسعه فردي وگروهي را براي از بين بردن شکاف بين شايستگيهاي موجود و شايستگيهاي مورد نياز در انجام يک پروژه ، ‌نقش شغلي يا راهبرد سازماني ، متمرکز کنند.
براساس الگوي شايستگي کنسرسيوم(EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE) HR-XML، شايستگي را مي‌توان به صورت زير تعريف کرد:
دانش ، مهارت ، توانايي و ساير ويژگيهاي مرتبط با استخدام ( نظير نگرش ، رفتار و توانايي فيزيکي ) که ويژه ، قابل تشخيص و قابل تعريف هستند و ممکن است نيروي انساني آن را داشته باشد و يا براي انجام يک فعاليت در يک زمينه تجاري خاص لازم يا مهم باشد .
در جدول 1، تعاريف اصلي "‌شايستگيها‌" را از نويسندگان و يا شرکتهاي مختلفي که به دنبال تلاش براي ارائه يک شناخت کامل از جوانب مختلف اين اصطلاح هستند، ارائه مي دهيم .
براساس تحليل تعاريف موجود و مطالعه و پژوهش ديگري که ما بر روي مديريت شايستگي انجام داده ايم، از اصطلاح " شايستگي " تعريف زير را ارائه داده ايم :
شايستگي ترکيبي از دانش ، رفتار و مهارتهاي صريح و ضمني است که به شخص ، نيروهاي بالقوه براي اثر بخشي در عملکرد کاري را مي دهد .
تحليل بيشتر مفهوم " شايستگي " ما را به اين نتيجه مي‌رساند که نوعاً شايستگي در قالبهاي زير تعريف مي‌شود :
_ طبقه: گروهي که شايستگيهاي همگن و يا مشابه در آن قرار مي گيرند.
_ شايستگي: يک نام توصيفي براي شايستگي ويژه.
_ تعريف: جمله (جملاتي ) که مفهوم اصلي اين شايستگي را تشريح مي کند .
_ رفتار آشکار شده : شاخصهاي رفتاري که يک فرد در صورت دارا بودن شايستگي ويژه اي ، آنها را نشان مي‌دهد .
جدول مثالي از يک تعريف شايستگي را در قالب طبقه ، شايستگي ، تعريف و رفتارآشکار شده نشان مي دهد . طبقه عمومي شايستگي ، " شايستگيهاي مديريت افراد " است که در بين ديگران مي تواند شامل شايستگيهاي " ايجاد روحيه تيمي " و " توسعه افراد " باشد . جدول مذکور تعاريف مشابه و رفتارهاي آشکار شده را نشان مي دهد .


چرخه حيات شايستگي و زمينه کاربردي اصلي
چرخه حيات شايستگي ، مجموعه اي از چهار مرحله کلان است که هدف آن ، ارتقا و توسعه مستمر شايستگيهاي فردي و سازماني است . اين چهار مرحله کلان عبارتند از : ترسيم شايستگي ، تشخيص شايستگي ، توسعه شايستگي و نظارت بر شايستگي .
هدف از ترسيم شايستگي آماده کردن سازمان جهت بازنگري بر کليه شايستگيهاي لازم براي انجام اهدافش است که به وسيله طرح تجاري سازمان ، الزامات پروژه ، نيازهاي گروه و نيازهاي نقش شغلي تعريف مي شوند . سطح تخصص لازم براي هر شغلي در اين مرحله بخوبي تعريف مي شود .
مرحله دوم ، تشخيص شايستگي است که به معني نمونه اي از وضعيت موجود شايستگي و سطح تخصصي مشابهي است که هر يک از کارمندها دارا هستند‌. تحليل شکاف مهارت نيز در اين مرحله ضروري است تا شکاف بين تعداد و سطح شايستگيهايي که کارکنان داراي آن هستند در مقايسه با تعداد و سطح شايستگيهاي لازم براي سازمان با توجه به نقش شغلي آنها، تعريف شود .
توسعه شايستگي مرحله سوم است و آن برنامه ريزي فعاليتهاست؛ چنانکه تعداد و سطح تشخيص شايستگيهايي که کارکنان بايدداشته باشند را براساس دو مرحله قبلي و تجزيه و تحليل شکاف مهارت ، افزايش دهد .
آخرين مرحله، نظارت بر شايستگيهاست يعني ارزيابي مداوم نتايج تحقق يافته، به وسيله مرحله توسعه شايستگي .
اجزاي اصلي يک سيستم مبتني بر شايستگي عبارتند از :
_ شناسايي / ارزيابي نتايج مطلوب : افراد نيازمند اين هستند که بدانند عملکرد سازماني که آنها سعي در دستيابي به آن براي شناسايي شايستگيهاي " وضع مطلوب" دارند چيست ؟ ارزيابي عملکرد سازمان همچنين اطلاعات خامي را براي کمک به ارزشيابي موفق تلاشهاي توسعه افراد ارائه مي کند .
_ الگوهاي شايستگي : شناسايي شايستگيهايي که به طور واقعي بر نتايج تاثير دارند .
_ ارزيابي شايستگي کارمند : افراد نيازمند آگاهي از شايستگيهاي کارکنان براي مقايسه آنها با وضـــع مطلوب هستند .
 
_ راهبردها و منابع توسعه کارکنان : افراد نياز به برنامه ها و منابع آموزش و توسعه دارند تا بتوانند به شکاف شايستگيها توجه کنند. در زير به تعاريفي از فرايندهاي حياتي در مديريت شايستگي مي پردازيم:
_ شناسايي شايستگي: فرايند کشف شايستگيهاي لازم براي عملکرد نمونه و کاملاً موفق .
_ الگوي شايستگي : يک توصيف داستان‌وار از شايستگيها براي يک طبقه شغلي ، گروه شغلي ، دايره ، اداره يا ديگر واحدهاي تجزيه و تحليل هدفمند.
_ ارزيابي شايستگي : فرايند مقايسه شايستگيهاي يک فرد با يک مدل شايستگي‌.
_ مديريت مبتني بر شايستگي : به کارگيري مجموعه اي از شايستگيها براي اداره نيروي انساني چنانکه عملکرد، به طور کارا و موثر به نتايج سازماني کمک کند.
_ استاندارد شايستگي : مهارتها و دانش ضروري که کارکنان بايد داشته باشند را مشخص و سطوح عملکردي که آنها بايد دست يابند را براي نشان دادن شايستگي در يک واحد يا وظيفه، تعريف مي کند .
_ نقشه شايستگي : مستنداتي که مجموعه شايستگيها را بويژه براي يک پست، شغل، گروه شغلي يا مجموعه اي از وظايف ، توصيف مي کند .
شايستگيها مي توانند در بخشهاي مختلف کارکردهاي مديريت کارکنان ، براي ايفاي يک نقش مهم در هر يک از آنها ، مورد استفاده قرار بگيرند .
شايستگيها در برنامه هاي کاربردي مديريت کارکنان به شرح زير مهم هستند‌:
_ برنامه ريزي نيروي کاري : شايستگيها به منظور ارزيابي نيازهاي فعلي و آينده شايستگي فردي و سازماني به کار مي روند. يک تجزيه و تحليل شکاف در اين مرحله مي تواند فاصله بين شايستگيهايي که تک تک کارکنان يا گروهها و يا حتي سازمان بايد داشته باشند و به طرح هاي نيروي کاري کمک کنند را آشکار سازد.
_ مديريت کارمنديابي: شايستگيها به منظور مقايسه قابليتهاي کانديداها با نيازهاي پست مورد نظر به کار مي روند‌. زماني که بهترين کانديدا مشخص مي‌شود شکافهاي شايستگي ، مقدمات يک برنامه يادگيري استخدام جديد را شکل مي‌دهد‌.
_ مديريت يادگيري : تجزيه و تحليل شکاف شايستگي مي تواند شايستگيهاي مورد نياز را تشخيص دهد.اين شايستگي مي تواند با موضوعات يادگيري مشابه مرتبط شود.
_ مديريت عملکرد : عملکرد کارمند در قبال نيازمنديها و همين طور اهداف شايستگي شغلي ارزيابي مي شود .
_ توسعه شغلي : شايستگيها براي طراحي برنامه هاي توسعه فردي کارکنان به کار مي روند . مي توان شايستگيهاي مورد نياز همه پست‌ها را بازنگري کرد واز طريق مقايسه شايستگيهايي که افراد دارا هستند، پست‌هاي بالقوه را شناسايي کرد و برنامه‌هاي کاري آنها را توسعه داد .
_ طرح جانشيني : سازمانها جايگزينهاي بالقوه را براي پست‌هاي کليدي ، براساس نيازمنديهاي شايستگي ارزيابي مي کنند .


توسعه الگوهاي شايستگي
در 10 سال اخير، بيشتر شرکتها و سازمانهاي دولتي به مباحثي همچون تحول سازماني، بهبود عملکرد، توسعه کارکنان،‌ طرح جانشيني و غيره، با اجراي برنامه هاي الگوسازي شايستگي توجه کرده اند تا عملکرد کارکنان را بانيازمنديهاي شغلي تطبيق دهند.
يک الگوي شايستگي فهرستي از شايستگيهايي است که از مشاهده عملکرد رضايتبخش يا استثنايي کارکنان براي يک شغل ويژه ، تهيه مي شود . اين الگو مي تواند شايستگيهايي که کارکنان بايد براي بهبود عملکرد خود در شغل فعلي توسعه دهند و يا براي ارتقا يا انتقال به شغلهاي ديگر آماده شوند را شناسايي کند . الگو همچنين مي تواند در تجزيه و تحليل شکاف مهارتها، يعني مقايسه بين شايستگيهاي موجود و مورد نياز سازمانها يا افراد ، مفيد باشد . يک طرح توسعه فردي مي تواند براي از بين بردن اين شکاف به وجود آيد . متغيرهاي مهمي که در خلال توسعه يک الگوي شايستگي بايد مورد توجه افراد قرار گيرند، استفاده از واژه‌نامه‌هاي مهارتها يا ايجاد واژه‌نامه‌هاي مخصوص سازمان و روشهاي شناسايي و تطبيق شايستگيها - مطالعات ميداني،مصاحبه ها ،‌گروههاي تمرکز و غيره - است .
شايستگيها قالبهاي ايجادکننده الگوهاي شايستگي هستند . براي مثال ، يک الگوي شايستگي براي يک مدير فروش ناحيه‌اي، ممکن است شامل شايستگيهايي نظير برنامه ريزي براي فروش ، کارتيمي، رقابت در بازار ، روندهاي صنعت و تفکر راهبردي باشد.
توسعه يک الگوي شايستگي گامهاي مختلفي را شامل مي شود که براي ايجاد و تاييد يک الگو لازم هستند . جدول 3 متداولترين گامهاي مورد استفاده در توسعه يک الگوي شايستگي را فهرست کرده است.


نتيجه گيري
مديريت شايستگي فعاليتي است که در سازمانهاي خصوصي و دولتي به مبحثي خيلي مهم تبديل شده است که به آنها درجذب و توسعه کارکنان مستعد کمک مي کند، شخص مناسبي را براي يک موقعيت شغلي شناسايي مي کند و طرح جانشيني ،‌تجزيه و تحليل آموزشي و ديگر کارکردهاي اصلي مديريت منابع انساني را انجام مي دهد .
در اين مقاله، علاوه بر تعريف مفهوم " شايستگي " ، چهار مرحله کلان در چرخه حيات شايستگي در يک سيستم مديريت شايستگي شناسايي شد که به ترتيب عبارتنداز: ترسيم، تشخيص، توسعه و نظارت بر شايستگي و آنها را به تفصيل مورد بحث قرارداده ايم .به علاوه، الگوريتمي را براي توسعه يک الگو شايستگي که هسته اصلي سيستم مديريت شايستگي است ارائه کرديم.


منبع:


DRAGANIDIS, FOTIS. MENTAZ GREGORIS, COMPETENCY BASED MANAGEMENT: A REVIEW OF SYSTEM AND APPROACHES, INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND COMPUTER SECURITY, VOL 14, NO1, 2006, PP 51, 84

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Abstract

Purpose – Aims to review the key concepts of competency management (CM) and to propose method for developing competency method.

Design/methodology/approach – Examines the CM features of 22 CM systems and 18 learning management systems.

Findings – Finds that the areas of open standard (XML, web services, RDF), semantic technologies (ontologies and the semantic web) and portals with self-service technologies are going to play a significant part in the evolution of CM systems.

Originality/value – Emphasizes the beneficial attributes of CM for private and public organizations.

Article Type:

General review

Keyword(s):

Competences; Competences framework; Modelling; Information management.

Journal:

Information Management & Computer Security

Volume:

14

Number:

1

Year:

2006

pp:

51-64

Copyright ©

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

ISSN:

0968-5227

1 Introduction

Competence management (CM) is an important research object in the more general area of knowledge management and a CM system is often integrated with learning management systems (LMSs). CM can have an important contribution at an organizational and personal level, as it identifies the key knowledge that an employee or an organization should possess in order to achieve his/its targets.

Competence and skills management have been tightly linked to the efforts of companies to create a setting for the empowerment of their workforce in order to increase competitive advantage, innovation, and effectiveness (Houtzagers, 1999). In addition, CM is directly related to corporate efforts to leverage internal knowledge and initiate consistent knowledge management initiatives (Hellstrom et al., 2000; Ley and Albert, 2003). Recently, CM is a research field attracting efforts to leverage personnel development (Beck, 2003), knowledge sharing (Won and Pipek, 2003), corporate e-learning efforts (Hockemeyer et al., 2003) as well as applications of semantic technologies like ontology management (Colucci et al., 2003).

Our objective in the present paper is to review the most common and widespread competency management (CM) systems, to study their characteristic applications and to provide future research directions.

The paper is organized as follows: in the first section, we provide a short introduction to CM. Next, we provide definitions of the key concepts of competency based management and analyse the competency lifecycle and the core application areas of CM systems. In the third section, we describe the different phases in developing a competency model, the cornerstone of a CM system. In the fourth section, we present our analysis on 22 CM systems and 18 LMSs which incorporate CM modules. We also present the common CM features in both categories of systems. Finally we discuss the technologies which will be evolutionary in the CM area and propose some research directions. An appendix (provided by the authors upon request) presents a description of the CM and e-learning systems we reviewed.

2 Competency based management: an overview

2.1 Definition of key concepts

The competency approach to human resources management is not new. The early Romans practiced a form of competency profiling in attempts to detail the attributes of a “good Roman soldier”. The introduction of competency based approaches within the corporate environment initiated around 1970 and their development and use since then has been rapid. The distinguished Harvard's psychologist, David McClelland is credited with introducing the idea of “competency” into the human resource literature, in his efforts to assist the United States Information Agency improve its selection procedures. The latter argued that traditional intelligence tests, as well as proxies such as scholastic grades, failed to predict job performance. McClelland's counter argument to the growing dissatisfaction with intelligence testing and the traditional job analytic approaches to personnel selection, was the proposal to test for competency. As a case study, he proposed the selection of Foreign Service Information Officers (McClelland, 1973). In his research, McClelland found that competencies such as interpersonal sensitivity, cross-cultural positive regards and management skills differentiated superior from average Information Officers (Dubois, 1993).

Throughout the years competency based approaches have proved to be a critical tool in many organizational functions, such as workforce and succession planning and performance appraisal.

The main reasons for selecting these approaches are the following:

  • They can provide identification of the skills, knowledge, behaviours and capabilities needed to meet current and future personnel selection needs, in alignment with the differentiations in strategies and organizational priorities.
  • They can focus the individual and group development plans to eliminate the gap between the competencies requested by a project, job role, or enterprise strategy and those available.

According to the HR-XML Consortium Competencies Schema (http://ns.hr-xml.org/2_0/hr-xml-2_0/cpo/competencies.pdf), a competency can be defined as:

A specific, identifiable, definable, and measurable knowledge, skill, ability and/or other deployment-related characteristic (e.g. attitude, behaviour, physical ability) which a human resource may possess and which is necessary for, or material to, the performance of an activity within a specific business context.

In Table I, we present the main definitions of “competencies” from different writers or companies in an effort to provide a complete understanding of the different aspects that this term incorporates.

Based on the analysis of the existing definitions and the further study and research that we have conducted on CM, we have concluded with the following definition of the term “competency”:

A competency is a combination of tacit and explicit knowledge, behaviour and skills, that gives someone the potential for effectiveness in task performance.

A further analysis of the concept of “competency” brought us to the conclusion that, typically, a competency is defined in terms of:

  • Category. A group to which homogeneous and/or similar competencies belong.
  • Competency. A descriptive name for the specific competency.
  • Definition. Statement(s) that explains the basic concept of this competency.
  • Demonstrated behaviour. Behaviour indicators which an individual should demonstrate if the specified competency is possessed.

Table II depicts an example of a competency's definition in terms of category, competency, definition and demonstrated behaviour. The general category of the competency is the “people management competencies”, which amongst others can include the competencies of “Building a Team's Spirit” and “Developing People”. The table illustrates the corresponding definitions and demonstrated behaviours.

2.2 Competency life cycle and core application areas

The competency life cycle is the aggregation of four macro-phases which aim at the continuous enhancement and development of individual and organizational competencies. The four macro-phases are as follows: competency mapping; competency diagnosis; competency development and competency monitoring.

Competency mapping aims to provide the organization with an overview of all the necessary competencies in order to fulfil its targets, which are defined by the organizational business plan, the projects requirements, the group needs and the job role requirements. The required proficiency level for each job profile is defined in this phase as well.

The second phase is competency diagnosis, meaning an instance of the current situation of the competencies and equivalent proficiency level that each individual employee possesses. A skill gap analysis is also essential in this phase, in order to define the gap between the number and level of competencies that the employees possess, in comparison with the number and level of competencies required by the organization, according to their job role.

Competency development is the third phase and it deals with the scheduling of activities so as to increase the number and proficiency level of competencies that the employees should have, according to the previous two phases and the skill gap analysis.

The last phase is the monitoring of competencies, i.e. a continuous examination of the results achieved by the competency development phase.

The typical core components of a competency-based system are as follows:

  • Identification/assessment of desired results. One needs to know what organizational performance he is trying to achieve in order to identify the “desired state” competencies. Organizational performance assessment will also provide data to help evaluate the success of your development efforts.
  • Competency models. Identification of the competencies that truly have an impact on results.
  • Employee competency assessment. One needs to know the competencies of employees in order to compare them with desired/ideal state (competency model).
  • Employee development strategies and resources. One needs to have the training and development programs and resources that can address the gap in competencies.

In the following, we present our own definitions of terms and processes which are essential in CM and competency based management systems, in an effort to provide a more complete overview of the area.

  • Competency identification. The process of discovering what competencies are necessary for exemplary or fully-successful performance.
  • Competency model. A narrative description of the competencies for a targeted job category, occupational group, division, department or other unit of analysis.
  • Competency assessment. The process of comparing an individual's competencies to those of a competency model.
  • Competency-based management. Application of a set of competencies to managing human resources so that performance contributes efficiently and effectively to organizational results.
  • Competency standard. Identifies the essential skills and knowledge workers must have, and defines the performance levels they must achieve, to demonstrate competency in a specific work segment or function.
  • Competency profile. Document that describes the set of competencies particular to a position/job/occupational group/functional community.

Based on the examination that we conducted on different competency based management systems (which are examined in detail in Section 4), we concluded that competencies can be used in different parts of employee management applications, having an important role in each one of them. Competencies are important in the following employee management applications:

  • Workforce planning. Competencies are used in order to evaluate the current and future organizational and individual competency needs. A gap analysis can reveal the chasm between the competencies that individual employees or groups or even the organization should have and contribute to the workforce development plans.
  • Recruitment management. Competencies are used in order to compare the capabilities of the candidate with the requirements of the offered position; once the best candidate is identified, competency gaps form the basis for an initial new-hire learning plan.
  • Learning management. Competency gap analysis can identify the needed competencies; these competencies can be linked with the equivalent learning objects.
  • Performance management. Worker performance is evaluated against job competency requirements as well as objectives.
  • Career development. Competencies are used to create the personal development plans of the employees. The latter can review the needed competencies of all the positions and through comparison with the competencies they possess they can identify potential positions and develop their career plans.
  • Succession planning. Organizations assess potential replacements for key positions based on competency requirements.

3 Development of competency models

Over the past ten years, many companies and governmental organizations have addressed issues such as organizational transformation, performance improvement, employee development, succession planning, etc. by the implementation of competency modelling programs, i.e. through strategic initiatives aimed at aligning employee performance with job requirements.

A competency model is a list of competencies which are derived from observing satisfactory or exceptional employee performance for a specific occupation. The model can provide identification of the competencies employees need to develop in order to improve performance in their current job or to prepare for other jobs via promotion or transfer. The model can also be useful in a skill gap analysis, the comparison between available and needed competencies of individuals or organizations. An individual development plan could be developed in order to eliminate the gap. Important variables to be considered during the development of a competency model are the use of skill dictionaries, or the creation of customized ones and the competency identification and verification methods – surveys, interviews, focus groups, etc.

Competencies are the building blocks of competency models. For example, a competency model for an Area Sales Manager might include competencies such as sales planning, team working, market competition, industry trends and strategic thinking.

Each competency in the model would be defined, including behavioural descriptors of how exemplary and lower levels of proficiency are demonstrated. Table III gives an example of a definition and some behavioural indicators for the competency of “Strategic Thinking”.

Table IV gives some examples of behavioural indicators for each level of proficiency, with the assumption that a specific competency can be characterized by three proficiency levels: the marginal, the average and the superior.

The development of a competency model consists of different steps, required for the creation and validation of the model. The validation process is a means of checking that the competencies predict successful job performance. Table V outlines the most commonly used steps in the development of a competency model.

In Table VI, we present the basic data attributes of a competency in a CM system, together with a description and some sample values.

4 Analysis of competency management systems

With the aim to analyse systematically the main features of CM as treated by existing systems, we conducted a review of 22 CM systems which can operate as standalone applications, as well as of 18 LMSs which incorporate a CM module.

The stand-alone CM systems that we reviewed are listed in Table VII, while detailed information about them can be found in the Appendix.

Apart from CM systems which operate as stand alone applications, it is a common practice for a LMS to incorporate CM features or modules. We have also conducted a review of the most important LMS and the CM features which are included in them (Table VIII).

Our review and analysis of abovementioned systems has revealed some common features that are available in most CM systems.

These features are the basis on which a CM system is built and can be later enhanced with additional modules such as multi-assessment evaluation tools, 360° feedback, talent management, succession management, e-learning library and learning objects integration and other. These features are outlined in Table IX.

5 Discussion and research directions

In this section, we discuss and analyse the main factors which could influence future research conducted on CM systems. These include web services, ontologies, use of emerging standards, portal and self-service technologies and the core characteristics of future human resource management systems (HRMS).

In the area of emerging standards, the worldwide web consortium (W3C) published XML specification 1.0 in 1998 in order to ease the enablement of e-commerce by providing a description of the way that data exchanged among systems over the internet should be tagged. The HR-XML consortium is one of the most active committees operating under the auspices of the W3C, with participation from major human capital management (HCM) vendors. A result of the work that the HR-XML consortium has done is Version 1.0 of the competency standard, which is embedded in the SEP (Staffing Exchange Protocol), used by many recruitment management vendors and core human resource packages. Future research should be conducted on enhancing this standard so as to increase adoption of competency data exchange and application interoperability.

Furthermore, research should also focus on the potential usage and integration of CM systems with web services, which are web-based services targeted to the simplification of the way that applications communicate and share information. The majority of HCM systems have been or plan to be enhanced with the use of web services in their development environments. Although lack of a published security specification is currently limiting full use of the web services paradigm, vendors are re-architecting their own application components, mainly for internal usage. As technology matures, the use of web services and XML will enable the concept of workforce management systems' application components reading competency data from the HRMS “master” repository and updating the master with new entries or revisions based on completion of business processes.

Another area which could prove to be increasingly interesting for further research is the area of employee portals with self-service technology. Most organizations and mainly financial and telecommunications companies, have adopted or plan to deploy such portals. An employee self-service portal can be integrated with the enterprise portal, thus facilitating tracking of certain competencies which are easily self-reported – such as courses and knowledge acquired out of the organization. This could be accomplished with the use of push and pull techniques – e.g. employees receive a quarterly e-mail notification reminding them to update their competency profile, with an embedded link to the relevant self-service page.

A research direction or technology evolution in employee portals with self-service technology would be a very possible solution to the often met problem of employees' lack of time and commitment to update the content of a CM system.

Moreover, ontology capabilities leading to the semantic web appear to becoming a core future technology. As a result, ontology-based models of competencies can present a tight integration of capabilities and information in a highly contextualized user interface. At the same time, different services and components may be loosely coupled through a dynamic architecture whose coherence is ensured via a common semantic model in a rich competency ontology.

Additionally, during the next few years, ontology tools and techniques are expected to offer the unified semantics needed to support dynamic application integration at the enterprise level. Consequently, organizations and enterprises should begin exploring the integration of semantic modelling and information management skills with their competency centres. Such an evolution would deal with the problem of enterprise application integration, the integration of CM systems with other core applications of an organization.

6 Conclusions

CM is a practice that becomes more and more important in private and public organizations, helping them to attract and develop talented employees, identify the right person for a job position, performing succession planning, training analysis and other core human resources functions.

Apart from defining the concept of “competency” we have identified the four macro-phases in a competency lifecycle in a CM system: namely, competency mapping; diagnosis; development; and monitoring, and we analysed them in detail. Moreover, we provided an algorithm for developing a competency model, the core around which a CM system is based.

We conducted a review of 22 commercial CM systems which can operate as standalone applications and 18 LMSs which incorporate a CM module and identified common features and differences amongst them. Some of the most common features are competency categories, definitions, proficiency scales, associated behaviours, job descriptions, assessment tool and competency tracking.

Finally, we provided research directions in the areas of open standards (XML, web services, RDF), semantic technologies (ontologies and the semantic web) and portals with self-service technologies. Our estimation is that these areas are going to have a significant role in the evolution of CM systems.