There are a variety of reasons why the majority of organizations use competencies.

In general, competency-based talent management is an effective way to increase consistency and coordination within your entire talent lifecycle.

However in many cases organizations aren’t getting the most out of their competency framework. The approach you take to design and implementing a competency framework can make or break a talent management strategy.

Here are the top reasons to make sure your competencies are optimized:

1.When optimized, your competencies accurately identify requirements for success

Competencies are a powerful tool in identifying requirements for success and translating those requirements into observable behaviors for each job. However, their effectiveness is dependent on whether the most relevant competencies that differentiate between top and mediocre performance have been selected.

By ensuring that your competencies reflect each job’s critical knowledge, skills, and abilities, your organization is more likely to meet its goals.

2.When optimized, your competencies support business goals

Ultimately, competency-based talent management needs to support business goals such as profitability, competitiveness, market share growth, efficiency, quick turnaround times, and increasing customer satisfaction.

An optimized competency framework considers all HR applications in order of priority in order to support short and long term goals. This will allow for continuous evolution of you initiative, and helps you control how the project unfolds.

3.When optimized, tools and training support performance management

If your competencies are optimized, it means you are likely utilizing tools and training to your advantage. Your employees will be more engaged, performance levels will rise, and communication organization-wide will improve.

With the proper tools in place, you will be able to decrease administrative effort on menial tasks, allowing for more time spent on important tasks such as connecting with new hires.

4.When optimized, a competency framework is simple to navigate and use

Some organizations assume that having more competencies is better, but this is a common misconception. Using fewer competencies (10-12) per job profile is more likely to have a high return on investment, and allow you to focus on the key contributors to success.

HRSG’s competency structure is multi-level, allowing you to clearly target successful performance

5.When optimized, you can easily evaluate the success of your initiative 

Identifying the impact of your initiative shouldn’t be complex. By identifying your goals and key benchmarks at the start of your competency initiative, you will be able to evaluate whether your competencies are having the desired impact, and how they are affecting various outcomes.

This is important for conducting competency audits, and for reporting results to senior leaders within your organization.

To learn more, check out our ebook on Optimizing Your Competency Framework, or take our 3 minute survey to test your current competency framework’s optimization level.