Competency modeling is a method of determining how people should go about their jobs – the identified competencies guide everyday behavior. You can use your competencies to drive hiring, individual development, training, and other applications.
Competency modeling is a bottom-line endeavor, not just a theoretical one. This point is reinforced throughout the book, showing potential impacts on revenue gains and cost savings.
This book includes a starter competency model, with ten competencies that you can adapt to your environment. Each has seven supporting behaviors, with corresponding interview questions and development guides.
This is a how-to book. It enables managers to lead efforts to design competency models and subsequent applications. The approaches are scalable, meaning you can do whatever you have the time and resources to support. A key takeaway is that you can create and use (successfully!) practical models, without making them overly elaborate.
“Dr. Alter provides very practical guidance on how to do competency modeling. While you don’t have to be an expert, you do need subject knowledge expertise and a willingness to roll up your sleeves. The benefits of doing so though are tremendous: clearer expectations, fewer misunderstandings, and improved organizational performance through better hires, targeted training, and support for succession planning. Anyone following Dr. Alter’s prescriptive advice will reap meaningful benefits to the organizational bottom line.”
Gary Musicante, Former Director, Strategic Human Capital, Workforce Analysis & Planning, Training & Development, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
“Competency modeling is both a management strategy, and a practical operational tool, for developing and deploying an organization’s most valuable resource … people. Large organizations have made this connection and work diligently to create people programs (hiring practices, development and training programs, talent planning and succession initiatives, performance management and goal setting objectives, etc.) that benefit both individuals and the collective organization. Translating competency modeling practice for smaller organizations has been an overlooked opportunity. Dr. Alter, with this book, fills that gap. Imminently readable, his book takes much of the mystery out of how to build a competency model and put it to work in smaller organizations.”
Dr. Jeff Schippmann, Former HR Leader with PepsiCo, Balfour Beatty and Graham Construction