The Art & Science of Competency Models

by Richard Lepsinger and Antoinette D. Lucia

Book Overview

How Do You Ensure that Employees Are Doing the Right Things?

Many of us ask, "What does it take to do a job well?" and stopthere. But there's more to it than that.

What skills and knowledge are necessary for effectiveness in acertain job? Does the employee have the appropriate skills andknowledge, or is some kind of training necessary? Are these jobexpectations aligned with the culture and strategy of theorganization as a whole?

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787946028
• ISBN13: 9780787946029
• Release Date: March 1999
• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A very good place to start

If you are new to this topic, you will get a good grounding of why and how you should go about developing a competency framework for your organisation. This book is thorough, to the point and easy to follow.

A good coverage of the field of competency models

Competency Models have become a must for an up-to-date HRM system - I have been helping companies to build this kind of models since 1996. These models make great tools for selection, training and development, appraisal and succession planning. Unfortunately, until I came accross this book, I found that most of the reference works to this field are quite unaccessible, not the kind I would put into the hands of a newcomer. This is a practical book, showing why competency models are important and helping the reader to go through the complete process of setting up such a system, including a chapter on how to sell the idea to others in the organisation - I wish some of the people I work with would have read this book before, that would have smoothened the problems that are caused if these steps aren't followed well. The book also shows how to transform your competence model into a 360° feedback questionnaire. It was the first time I came accross a book explaining how to do that! The only area that I found a bit weak is the compentency-interview (both for building the model, als doing behavior-based interviews for recruiting), but maybe that's a bias coming from my own expertise in that domain (my book "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence" includes a full chapter on how to ask the right questions).Conclusion - whether you know about Competency Models or not - add this book to your library! And if you are a consultant in the field of competency models, this is a book you might recommend to your customers.Patrick E. Merlevede -- co-author of "7 Steps to Emotional Intelligence"

Very readable overview

This is a perfect choice for the novice reader who is trying to get a basic understanding of the whys and wherefores of compentency models. It's very readable book and not nearly as dry as I might have expected. In particular, the authors' copious use of real-world examples, cases and models is extremely helpful. I even got some great ideas for project management that I'll be able to apply broadly in my work, regardless of whether or not my organization undertakes a competency modeling project.My only criticism is that the book focuses exclusively on CMs in a HRM context; there is no real discussion of industry-scale models, which was my main reason for reading the book. Nevertheless, a very good resource for a beginner.

A must read for everyone!

Well written. Reader-friendly without sacrificing depth of content. I am not an HR specialist, but I still find this book to be very useful. Provides me with knowledge on competency and how to build a competency model for my own company.

A "must" reading guide !!!

"Competency models that identify the skills, knowledge, and characteristics needed to perform a job have been in use for more than three decades. In the last five years, interest in them and their potential to help staffing and development efforts has increased dramatically among our client group. We believe this interest will continue to grow over the next few years due to three key, related trends-intensified competition, aggressive cost management and downsizing, and the proliferation of 360-degree feedback system (A. D. Lucia & R. Lepsinger / Preface xiii)." In this invaluable study authors* define what a competency model is, describe its components, and discuss some of their broad, general applications.* examine how competency models can be applied within selection, training and development, appraisal, and succession planning systems to support an organization's business objectives.* discuss establishing the performance criteria with which your organization measures success to better focus your data collection and analysis.* describe specific action steps to follow during the development of the competency model from scratch.* discuss various methods of data collection and how they can be used to increase the likelihood of identifying the knowledge, skills, and characteristics required to succeed in the job.* describe the process of creating competency-based selection, training and development, appraisal, and succession planning systems.* discuss the methods for converting the model into the necessary formats or tools to integrate the competencies into each step of human resource management.This study is a "must" reading guide for HR professionals and line managers. I highly recommend. See also :* The Competency Casebook/D. Dubois* Strategic Human Resource Leader/W.J.Rothwell et.al.