This case study focuses on a healthcare client who needed help with simplifying the complexities in their HR processes.

By transitioning to CompetencyCore, this HRSG client replaced hundreds of spreadsheets and Word documents with a single, cloud-based data center that makes it easier to engage and support their employees.

The challenge: Simplify the complexity

The call-center division for this specialty benefits management company was experiencing growing pains after seeing their workforce double in five years. With locations nationwide, every call center was following different HR policies, practices and procedures, resulting in disconnection, confusion, and inconsistency.

With even faster growth projected for the future, they needed to streamline HR activities and ensure the organization maintained a strong, shared culture as it evolved.

To achieve that aim, the company decided to develop a set of competencies that could be universally applied to employee assessment and development. But making the competency content accessible and usable posed a challenge.

Initially, they used spreadsheets to manage the competencies and map them to each job in the call center—from entry level to senior positions. But the end result was a tangle of hundreds of spreadsheets that were difficult to use and time-consuming to update. As a result, competencies simply weren’t being applied across the organization.

The solution: Competencies in the cloud

The company decided to look at cloud-based solutions that could help them manage, update and apply competencies more efficiently. They chose CompetencyCore, a set of cloud-based, modular tools that supports and automates the process of managing, customizing, and using competencies.

The base module, a Competency Manager, enabled them to retire the spreadsheets and streamline the competency management process. Instead of maintaining and updating multiple documents, they can make changes directly in a central database, which automatically updates any related job profiles or talent-management materials.

CompetencyCore also gave them access to quality, multi-level competencies, which they used to create job profiles that they validated using a multi-location pilot group of about 50 employees.

Once they had validated competencies in place, they added the CompetencyCore assessment module and conducted competency-based assessments for each pilot subject.

The automated system guides employees and assessors through their respective roles and responsibilities for 360-degree, parallel, and self-assessment processes.

With a successful trial completed, the company is now evaluating the pilot and refining the process before rolling it out across the organization.

The Result: Supported, engaged employees

Using CompetencyCore, the company now has the tools needed to standardize a competency-based approach to talent management across multiple locations—an initiative that will help them manage continued growth while maintaining a strong organizational culture.

More importantly, the process is now manageable, accessible, and interactive, which makes it easier for the company to support employee success and advancement directly and effectively.

Employees now have a standard template and process in place that promotes engagement and guides constructive dialogue, a process that’s integral to the company’s organization culture.

Why use competencies at your organization?

Research shows that companies using competencies enjoyed significant improvements in key performance indicators, such as:

• 63% reduction in turnover,
• 19% improvement in employee performance
• 12.5% increase in sales & profits.

Want to learn more about applying competencies? Download our Multi-level Competencies: Building a Foundation for Strategic HR (eBook).  

What you will learn:

• The difference between single and multi-level competencies.
• Components of a multi-level competency.
• First steps for getting started.
• How to use competencies across the talent lifecycle.
• Best practices for developing competency-based job profiles.

Post last updated: March 2, 2020.