Bachelor’s Thesis
2021 Ross Bartolomei
University of Economics, Prague Faculty of Business Administration
Bachelor’s Field: Corporate Finance and Management
Title of the Bachelor´s Thesis:
Employee development for the future of work.
Author: Ross Bartolomei
Supervisor: Mgr. Daniela Černá
D e c l a r a t i o n o f A u t h e n t i c i t y
I hereby declare that the Bachelor´s Thesis presented herein is my own work, or fully and specifically acknowledged wherever adapted from
other sources. This work has not been published or submitted elsewhere for the requirement of a degree programme.
Prague, May 12, 2021 Signature
Acknowledgement: The Author would like to thank his friends and family for continuous support throughout the challenges brought from COVID-19.
Especially to his father for pushing him along the way. Many thanks to
Professor Daniela Černá for feedback and help along the way
Title of the Bachelor´s Thesis:
“Employee development for the future of work”
Abstract:
The aim of this research paper is to help identify what employers/organizations can do to better employees for the future of work. I will talk about Competence Management, and the relation to employee motivation to get a successful final product. There will be different tools and assessments that employers and managers can use to help employees grow and be more prepared for their future endeavors.
Key words:
Competency management, Development, Employe
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ... 9
2 Connecting employee motivation with employee engagement ... 10
3 How Employee Engagement Feels: ... 12
4 Competence Management vs. Competency Management ... 12
5 Best tools and strategies available for employee development ... 12
5.1 Formal Courses or programs ... 13
5.2 Assessment ... 13
5.3 Professional Relationships ... 16
5.4 On-The-Job Experiences ... 16
6 The implementation of a Competency-Based Employee Development ... 17
6.1 CIPP Model ... 29
7 How organizations fail with motivation and competency management ... 30
7.1 Failure starting from the top ... 31
7.2 Unclearly defined competencies ... 31
7.3 Lack of involvement by the key stakeholders ... 31
7.4 The power of communication being overlooked ... 32
8 Future of work ... 32
8.1 What do researchers say about the future? ... 32
9 Will there be needs of new skills or competences to be successful? ... 33
9.1 Strong written and communication skills... 33
9.2 Planning and Organizing ... 33
9.3 Motivation ... 34
9.4 Proactive / Problem solver ... 34
10 Expected skill needs for the future of work? ... 34
11 Practical Part ... 38
11.1 Methodology ... 38
11.2 Research Type ... 38
11.3 Coding ... 38
11.4 Discussion themes ... 39
11.5 Research findings ... 48
11.5.1 Theme 1: Different tools/models and programs in companies ... 48
11.5.2 Theme 2: Tools/Strategies that employees feel should be implemented ... 48
11.5.3 Theme 3: The structure of the future workplace ... 48
11.5.4 Theme 4: Future skills employees see needed in the workplace ... 49
11.5.5 Theme 5: Career building ... 49
11.5.6 Theme 6: Implementation failures in organizations ... 50
11.5.7 Research limitations ... 50
12 Conclusion ... 50
13 Bibliography ... 52
14 Appendix ... 55
List of Figures
Figure 1 4 different groups of engagement ... 11
Figure 2 360 Degree Feedback ... 15
Figure 3 Implementing Competcy-Based Employee Development Plan ... 19
Figure 5 CIPP Evaluation Model ... 30
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1 Introduction
The future of employment of an employee is rather important as we are experience more changes in the work environment. Companies and/or organizations should implement some type of competency management tool to better their employees while at work. In turn by knowing more about their employees and developing them based upon their exact needs and ways they need development, decreased the turnover rate in companies. If a company/organization has a high turnover rate means that expenses increase for employees with finding and training new employees, it also has some negative impact related to the company/organization’s morale. During late 2019 to present (2021) the world experienced a huge disruption from the COVID-19 virus and most employees are on work from home. The challenging part is to keep these employees motivated and happy as it influences the quality of working and betters the organizations efficiency. I will explain in detail different ways that organizations can help better their employees with different developing tools/strategies.
Organizations are not just wasting money to give their employees the only benefit. While employees are developing, they are having experiences that they can share with others, in turn developing other employees, giving them knowledge and insight to these experiences.
Some examples of these would include formal courses or programs, assessments, professional relationships, and on-the-job experiences. Other tools and implementations for organizations that can be implemented and developed more over time is a competency-based employee development plan, that gives insight to how one can be structured step by step by step. I will discuss the future of work, talking about expected needs for new skills and what is expected for the future as the work environment is changing quickly. And how the working environment will look like in the future.
After going through the theory part I will go into a practical part where I interviewed 10 business professionals in three different countries and in multiple different business sectors to get an understanding of what they have implemented in their companies/organizations. Also, I want to get an understanding of how they see it and what they will want to see in the future.
This will all be tied back to the findings in the theoretical part and how it looks like.
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2 Connecting employee motivation with employee engagement
Finding quality talent is hard, but what is even more difficult is keeping the talent engaged.
Unless you constantly reinvest in your employees’ development through good onboarding and continuous training-helping them achieve their full potential, they will leave, and you will be back at square one trying to find more talent (Olenski, 2015). Sited from a Harvard Business review page saying the author Schaufenbuel says that “Understanding the reasoning behind employees’ actions, and using those results to motivate them, you can improve business performance. In addition to being more highly engaged, motivated employees handle uncertainty more easily; are better problem-solvers; have higher levels of innovation, creativity, and customer-centricity; are more profitable; create higher levels of customer satisfaction; and increase employee retention rates. (Napolitano, 2016) putting the different types of employees you have into a group and ranking them is the best way to understand what motivates them.
George Horace Gallup, American pioneer of survey sampling techniques and inventor of the Gallup poll.
They say that employee engagement is also important. “Gallup says there are three groups:
• Engaged: work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company. They drive motivation and move the organization forward.
• Not engaged: are essentially “checked out.” They are sleepwalking through the workday, putting time not energy or passion into their work.
• Actively disengaged: Every day, these workers undermine what their engaged co- workers accomplish. (Napolitano, 2016)
From these groups you can see that actively disengaged employees are the ones that are pulling down the organization the most. Gallup notes that these types of employees are emotionally distant from their businesses and may potentially behave against the interests of their employers; they are much less efficient, more likely to steal from the organization, have detrimental effects on other employees, skip working days and push customers away.
Employee engagement groups can also be split into 4 profiles, slightly different from Gallup’s approach. Employee engagement is measure by how the employee fells about the organization, based upon their perception of the workplace. (Ryba, 2021)
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Figure 1 4 different groups of engagement
Like Gallup noted about the actively disengaged group, it is important to understand why these people are disengaged, and how to handle these types of employees, so that their negative views do not affect workers’ productivity around them.
In 2012, Gallup reported that only 30% of the employees in the U.S., and only 13% of the employees feel engaged outside of the U.S., feel they are engaged within their companies. In 2015, the figures did not change in any significant way for the better. (Olenski, 2015) Even through statistical data is proves to companies/organizations that is well worth their efforts and resources to help and develop employees to retain them rather than hiring and firing. According to a survey conducted in 2017 of the state of small business report, where over 1,100 U.S. small businesses were surveyed. 21% of the businesses plan to invest in training or tools to improve employee productivity, and 29% plan to hire new employees (Wasp Barcode Technologies, n.d.). Research also shows that good mangers can increase the engagement of the employees.
Organizations rely on talented and inspiring managers, who continue to involve workers and help employees to achieve strategic imperatives. However, not every manager has these qualifications. Gallup research reveals that about only one in 10 people have the existing talent to manage (Olenski, 2015). “The process of developing employees for greater roles and responsibilities accomplishes two goals: keeping employees engaged and energized about their future with the company and ensuring the organization has a new generation of managers who are prepared to inspire and lead, which in turn increases the levels of employee engagement.”
(Olenski, 2015) Olenski agreeing with what Gallup believes in, engaged workers will drive motivation and lead the organization forward.
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3 How Employee Engagement Feels:
Previously we made the connection between employee engagement related to the motivations of the employees, but what does engagement feel like? There are four components to feeling engaged: feelings of urgency, feelings of being focused, feelings of intensity, and feelings of enthusiasm. (William H. Macey, 2009) The combination of these four elements differs from other related concepts and simultaneously creates a powerful source of employee achievement and competitive advantages for companies. A people’s scientist Fresia Jackson said “people who are engaged feel energized by their work, whereas people experiencing burnout come home feeling exhausted. (Jackson, n.d.) This is important because employees are not affected by the negative effects of overtime and do maintain a positive mindset, despite being committed to work longer hours. When employees are engaged, they tend to help other fellow employees go “outside” of their formal job delegation, without being asked by anyone.
This is also known as Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB) or a discretionary effort.
Researcher Bruce Louis Rich found that when there is an environment that is supporting the employee engagement, the engaged individuals perform OCB’s. (Jackson, n.d.)
4 Competence Management vs. Competency Management
To start off, what is Competence Management (CM)? Where did it come from? The term
„competence” first appeared in an article written published in 1959 authored by R.W. White as a concept for performance motivation. Competencies are defined as observable abilities, skills, knowledge, motivations, or traits defined in terms of the behaviors needed for successful job performance (Purushotham, Somassundaram, & Naik). A competency can be defined as an underlying characteristic of an individual that is casually related to criterion referenced effective and/or superior performance in a job or situation. (Palan, 2003) Defining the difference between the two is important to understand for how they will connect with motivation/motivating employees. No one is the exact same and some individuals in an organization will have different specialty skills or traits that contribute to their performance. One of the more effective ways to motivate employees is to understand their needs and wants, for example: what drives them to work every day and wake up at 5:00am get in their car, go drive to the train station, sit on a train for over an hour and then walk to the office arriving at 8:30am. It may seem crazy at first that one would do all of that to get to the workplace, but in the work world this really happens.
Why do they do it? Maybe they are seeking financial stability, or really love the company’s culture, or like some kind of challenge/ meeting their performance goals. Managers should know and understand what can motivate one individual does not motivate all of them, it should be specific to their characteristics.
5 Best tools and strategies available for employee development
Employee development methods fall into four categories: formal courses or programs, assessment, professional relationships, and on-the-job experience (Noe, 1997). I will explain each of the four different categories and how they look like in practice with examples of organizational use. The value gained by implementing these approaches will increase the value of human capital, which in turn gives value to both the employees and the employer. As a note,
13 some or even potentially none of them may be appropriate or possible for all jobs or organizations due to the design of the job or resource constraints.
5.1 Formal Courses or programs
Formal courses as in learning. Formal learning can be defined to a certain type of a learning program, in which the goals and objectives are specified by a certain training department, instructional designer, and/or synchronous learning. Examples of formal learning would be via online (web-based, webinars, remote lab, e-learning courses, etc.), and it could be in a classroom setting with an instructor. Moving from a strictly formal to a blended learning does not take away our jobs. In fact, it would be giving us new perspectives and skills, giving us a fresh perspective into what we do. Best of all, it addresses some challenges that we have had for years. (Willis, 2018). Another form of formal courses can be used from a Learning Management System (LMS) or Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Examples of LMSs is Paylocity, 360Learning, Lessonly, Mindflash, and many others (G2, 2020). MOOCs are online courses structured with video content. The content is created by an educational institution or universities. Some of the top Universities that have MOOCs are Harvard, Stanford, and other universities, in Europe there are examples like the universities of London, Cambridge, Munich, and such. Though it is not limited to just universities, other examples of the most used MOOC platforms would include Canvas Network, Iversity, Khan Academy, and many others (Ngo, 2020). There are plenty of Formal courses or programs out on the market for organizations to develop their employees for the future and on a continuous basis. In fact, there are large organizations and some of the biggest corporations (Google, SAP, and Yahoo) that are leveraging the power of MOOCs. Large organizations understand the value in having a well- educated base. (Ferriman, 2020) So why shouldn’t they be investing in them? We know that the more engaged the employee is the more motivation they will have towards the company/organization. The telecom company AT&T uses MOOCs to develop their employees.
In 2013, AT&T, Georgia Tech and Udacity partnered up, launching their first-ever MOOC.
They offer a master degree of Science in computer science. They stated that it has been a huge success and they have more than 2,200 students enrolled currently. Their investment within the Nanodegree programs (the MOOCs, partnered with other universities) has helped them with recruiting talent, and is giving their existing employees the specific, and essential skill sets they need to support their customers presently and, in the future, (AT&T, 2021). Research shows that when companies/organizations are providing the financial support for the for their employees to attend MOOCs, the completion rate is much higher, and the employees are less likely to look for alternative employment (Hamori, 2018). In turn, both employees and the organization are benefiting from the outcome.
5.2 Assessment
Certifications and feedbacks are autonomous activities for assessment that employees can use to upgrade their skills and identify ways to better performance, and future possibilities.
Certifications guarantee one’s knowledge, experience and certain skills in a certain professional field. Normally, you can find certifications created by an institution or a professional society that offers an exam or test for people who meet some kind of minimum qualification (typically,
14 an level of education like a bachelor degree, or work experience is needed) that will help assess one’s understanding and/or ability to complete a specific task or job duties. Those who score above the required standards receive a certification as proof of their expertise. An example of this could be Bloomberg’s market concepts certification, where individuals have to test their knowledge of the system and how to read data in different fields in order to receive the certification. Another example would be a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), where the exam taker must have prior work experience in accounting, where it is required to have a bachelor’s degree with at least 150 credit hours of coursework to become a licensed CPA. Though it can vary depending on the country or location where the exam is taken.
Feedback seeking is when employees actively inquiring about their performance or observations of and from others inferring their strengths and weaknesses based on the comparison (Ashford & Cummings, 1983). When employees are seeking feedback, they reflect upon their strengths and weaknesses, and should find out how they can improve from their weaknesses to further develop as an employee. 360 degree feedback is used to give feedback to employees from all directions of contact, 360 degree feedback is a process of evaluation where usually feedback is taken from superiors, peers, subordinated, worker and customers and after the evaluation is over the feedback is shared with the work by the manager giving them a clear picture and even hinting at growth by giving developmental session (Mohapatra, 2015).
Another definition for 360-degree feedback is a feedback process where not just your superior but your peers and direct reports and sometimes even customers evaluate you. You receive an analysis of how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you (The Economic TImes, n.d.). The structure looks similar to the figure below, note that it is not just limited to just these 4 groups to give feedback to the employees. In certain organizations there could be more or less. How the data is taken is from some sort of sponsor, usually someone or multiple people from the HR department take the responsibility of sending out the reports to be completed from the surrounding groups (clients, managers, peers, etc.).
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Figure 2 360 Degree Feedback
Why 360 degree feedback? It improves the employee’s development along the way by giving them a clear understanding of what they might be really good at or do well, or it can make an employee realize what mistakes they are making and how to fix them. 360 appraisals provide employees with valuable feedback about what they need to do to further fix their careers (98% of employees will fail to engage when they are given little to no feedback). With a 360 process, an employee is given multiple opportunities to learn what they are doing well and what needs improving. (SoGoSurvey, 2020). The pros of this type of feedback is that it reveals specific career development, develops and strengthens teamwork and accountability, Better feedback form multiple sources, and improved team development and communication, and a more complete assessment (Heathfield, 2021; SoGoSurvey, 2020; The OfficeVibe Content Team, 2017). It is not just limited to these few upsides there are more these are the ones that I feel are important in an organization. Since we talked about some of the pros, the cons are also important to note as they can cause bigger problem in the organization. The cons include: It can create a negative culture (which can be prevented simply by teaching employees what is constructive feedback), the feedback might be too focused on the employees’ weaknesses and not enough on their strengths which could discourage them, and it can prevent recipients from getting more information because the process is done anonymously. (Heathfield, 2021;
SoGoSurvey, 2020; The OfficeVibe Content Team, 2017). Once again there are more negatives related to the feedback, these are just some of the potential negatives. They can mostly be avoided if the organization is aware of them and can be fixed for the next time of collecting the data.
16 5.3 Professional Relationships
Networking or involvement in practice represents independent and discretionary development practices, requiring workers to strive to cultivate partnerships with other practitioners to build opportunities for growth. Networking develops the employee’s social capital. It should be taken as the employee must put in effort to maintain this relationship as it they can use them to meet more people and create more relationships giving them more access to potential knowledge gained with the relationship. Previously, we discussed the more formal way of getting information via programs and courses. Networking can be different as it includes more informal advice and information. To assist employees/individuals in the process, professional organizations who often host local events (like guest speakers, Ted talks, or even international conferences). Networking requires some kind of engagement in order to make the connections, and with engagement we already know that employee engagement is tied with the motivations and development for them in the future career.
5.4 On-The-Job Experiences
When talking about on-the-job experiences, there are two parts that are attached to this concept. Both Job crafting, and sabbaticals which involve proactively engaging in tasks and making the changes to meet skill needs and personal fulfillment for career aspirations.
Job crafting is referred to a bottom-up approach to a job design in which the employees alter their work situations to achieve a better match between their aspirations/needs and their circumstances/jobs (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Employees later their work situations, because they some sort of desire to retain control, or establish meaning. There are two approaches of job crafting that suggest a job design can influence employee development.
(McCauley, Ruderman, Ohlott, & Morrow, 1994) suggest task emphasizing and job expanding influence employee development. Task emphasizing involves employees choosing or electing to change the nature of a task/s or dedicating additional time and attention to a task. Job expanding involves finding and choosing to take a new, unknown task that often will require using trial and error to accomplish it. From this, it should be clear that the employees with have to be motivated and have some sort of positive engagement to do this. When employees do this, it is attributing to value for both the employer and employee. The employer has an employee who is seeking new and potentially more challenging tasks than their current delegations, while the employee is learning and understanding new tasks that will help them develop and move up in the organization.
What is a sabbatical? A dictionary definition is a period of paid leave to a university teacher or other worker for study or travel, traditionally one year for every seven years worked (Murray, 2017). Some argue that there isn’t exactly a definition of one, another definition is extended time off from routine work for a purpose (DiDonna, 2019). Extended time meaning somewhere from six to eight weeks off, that is considered the time for someone to fully unplug from work. Routine work relates to your daily routine that’s tied to work, it’s the identity you take on from your work. Finally, the purpose, what are you trying to achieve with the time off
17 (to work on a business plan, take care of a dying relative, see distant family, travel the world, etc.). Why would we need a sabbatical? Over 70% of Americans report on a Gallup poll that they are either actively engaged or are not engaged at all at work during on a weekly basis, millennials are especially burned out, 3 out of 10 say they are severely burned out from work (DiDonna, 2019). With these statistics it shows that majority of the employees not having the efficacy, are depressed and cannot do their tasks. By having a sabbatical, it can be restorative giving a fresh start, you can focus on more things that are important to you. Sabbaticals enable employees to really grow and develop (Passarelli & Kolb, 2011). There is a concept in the research field called protein career meaning that you are in charge of your own career, you have to acquire the skills to move on to the next level, and you are happy and healthy and ready to move on. You can really hone in on this and get prepared to go to the next level in your working career.
There are three main benefits that (DiDonna, 2019) found for taking time off. 1. there is an identity work that happens from being away from work. You can really take a step back, get some perspective, and spend time on something else that matters to you. This gives you more perspective about your work and life, most importantly you. We change over time, sometimes this perspective is being blocked from working and not taking the time to step back. 2. is the greatest predictor of longevity in health, happiness, and old age, is the quality of one’s relationship in the middle age. With little work life balance, this cannot be achieved. It is hard to achieve this from working all the time and not taking the time off that you really need.
Finally, sabbatical gives the employee the tools for change. (DiDonna, 2019) says those tools are confidence, and lower risk aversion. Stepping back from work or doing something you always wanted to do, gives people more confidence and an ability to tackle risks that they will face in the future. Often companies and organizations are concerned about giving sabbaticals as they see it as why should they give their employees more time off when they will probably just leave. In reality, the data suggests that all of the people whose companies gave them sabbatical, 80% of them came back to the same job, re-energized, and re-engaged (DiDonna, 2019). Organizations realize the value gained of the employee through knowledge, skills, expertise, creative problem solving and innovations. Employers also benefit from employees taking sabbaticals with an increased attachment to the employer/organization and renewed
enthusiasm for the work (Carr & Tang, 2005).
6 The implementation of a Competency-Based Employee Development
To start off, what is a competency and employee development refer to? Employee development is the pursuit of any activity that leads to continuous learning and personal growth and contributes to achieving both the individual’s and the organization objectives. It is a continuous learning process that deepens an employee’s understanding of his or her values, interests, skills, aptitudes, personal attributes, and competency strengths (Purushotham, Somassundaram, & Naik). These competencies are acquired through the development of the employee and are mostly intended for the future application.
18 Dubois and Rothwell explain that the traditional employee development is rather challenging to describe firstly because the employee development method may not be well defined by the organization, and when it is defined by the organization it is usually inconsistent throughout the organization. Secondly, leaders of some organizations do not view the employee development as a driver of the organization’s success, they do not realize that it could be a necessary and support for the employees to reach their competency or life-career development objectives when this is achieved both the organization and their employees would be rewarded for their mutual efforts. Employers are often surprised when their employees develop on their own objectives, then leave the organization for another job somewhere else. This is not to say that the organizations don’t have approaches for employee development, its more that the applications used are not part of a well-defined formal process of development, and consequently, the degree of success achieved by the employees through the „traditional employee development“ practices is rather unclear in most cases.
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Figure 3 Implementing Competency-Based Employee Development Plan
Source 3 Figure was obtained from the book Competency-Based Human Resource Management, by Authors David D. Dubois William J. Rothwell (page 200)
Step 1: Identify a sponsor and develop a philosophy and a framework for the employee development process.
The most logical sponsor for a competency-based employee development process is the organization’s HR department, if the organization does not have the means to do so then a
Implementing Competency-Based Employee Development
Step 5: Identify employee competency development needs and life-career and preferences.
Step 6: Draft objectives for the employee development process and identify possible delivery methods for development services.
Step 7: Develop a plan for the start-up process.
Step 8: Brief senior managers and organize an advisory panel.
Step 9: Brief advisory panel members.
Step 10: Implement and evaluate the start-up process.
Step 11: Brief senior managers on outcomes and lessons learned.
Step 12: Institutionalize and evaluate the employee development process.
Step 1: Identify a sponsor and develop a philosophy and a framework for the employee development process.
Step 2: Secure resources for a front-end needs assessment.
Step 3: Identify the organization’s present-to-future competency needs and assess employee competencies.
Step 4: Complete preliminary competency assessments and develop estimates of competency needs for targeted employees.
20 manager with the most crucial need for the competency-based development incitive. The responsibility is generally shared jointly with a member of the HR department and a staff member for the sponsoring manager. After the sponsor is identified the next step is for the organization to decide a philosophy for the employee development effort, the process framework is built upon this foundation. The first steps are to define the purpose and figuring out who will fit each role in order for success, and create a team that will be in charge of all areas related to the framework (Mind tools company, n.d.) An example of a philosophy or purpose that an organization could adopt would be a life-career philosophy, the framework with this philosophy would provide employees with initiatives that help them to create development plans that would express their own work preferences, activities, learning, families, and other parts of their lives. The employee development process must be effective and serve a diversity of different persons and multiple generations of workers. Now adays you can see the baby boomers working alongside with millennial, and gen-Xers. The Process must accommodate the differences with these generations. Lastly all stakeholders must develop and understand the wording used to describe the competency-based employee development process and the achieving objectives. The vocabulary is crucial in this part, as the employee should understand how the process will roll out with other HR management initiatives and address the needs of the other business/work units. It is also important part in managing the expectations of the employees in this process.
Step 2: Secure resources for a front-end needs assessment.
Every good initiative needs to face a detailed front-end impact analysis first. Senior managers will need to collect a large amount of data on employees’ competencies and age- related career issues. Some ways to collect this information is from observing, interviewing, creating a questionnaire, and or analyzing the work of the employees in the organization.
Generally, the better the data you can collect, the more accurate your framework will be (Mind tools company, n.d.). therefore the data should be as detailed as possible. Without such detail, organizing this effort will be challenging. Organizations which do no implement adequate employee development programs will be forced to spend resources. (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) state such resources as:
• An external consultant or contractor with competency-based employee development expertise, such as a professional career counselor or certified career development facilitator, if the necessary experience is not available internally.
• A research resource who can set up, administer, analyze, and report the findings of employee surveys, interviews, and similar data collection and analysis tasks.
Step 3: Identify the organization’s present-to-future competency needs and assess employee competencies.
The sponsor or senior management must specify which workers are the ones who will become the customers of the competency development process, as this will affect both the skill
21 sets and the traits of the process. With the client base extended to include other competency sets and employee classes, organizations must beat in mind that these characteristics can become limiting factors when the employee development is expanded to other competency sets and other groups of employees. For this to work the organization’s competency needs and the employees’ competency requirements need to be the same. “The elements to be defined are simple: Here is the work that must be done, here are the persons (or types of persons) who are available to do that work, and here are the competencies they must possess and use in appropriate ways to achieve those work objectives fully successful or exemplary manner.”
(Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) If an HR preparation system has been implemented, the necessary information is likely in the system. A failure to define the necessary competency sets for an employee development system would result in an ill-conceived program, incomplete process that will have little effect on the quality of the overall HR profession.
Identifying work that has not yet been done is challenging because it requires comparing it to its actual performance to a potential goal. Often the criteria are hard to interpret, since they must be changed to ensure that the results are of better quality. Beware of investing in employees’ skills and capabilities that are not important. Therefore, this move must be performed with great caution, as this can be limiting influences for the predictions. Perform to achieve the company objectives these job requirements should be presented in easy, logical steps with regards to capabilities and indicators.
There are three forms of competencies established when working elements are evaluated for competence recognition purposes. The first category is made up of functional or technological skills specific to the work’s specialized nature. The second form contains the ones required for good everyday living or fundamental skills such as reading and arithmetic. The third category involves the more abstract skills workers use in their jobs such as their capacity for patience or their ability to deal with uncertainty effectively. There are currently many approaches used to classify skills, and new methods may be used as the technique progresses.
In view of their circumstances, each organization must identify a strategy with detailed and reliable results. If it is not possible to use very comprehensive approaches to identify and model skills, HR practitioners should suggest making a tentative, high-quality identification of competences for subject-matter work and target population. (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) suggest this can be achieved by modifying Developing a Curriculum (DACUM) process. Developing a curriculum (DACUM) process is a method that integrates the use of a focus group in a facilitated storyboard process in order to capture the major tasks and related task involved in a job and the expertise, skills and characteristics required.
Developing a Curriculum (DACUM) process is a process that includes the use of a focus group in a facilitated storyboard process to capture the key duties and tasks that are included in the occupation, as well as the knowledge, skills, and traits that are necessary in the occupation.
It gives a quick and comprehensive analysis of any job with this cost-effective method. Step one often is called the “Initial occupations profile” this is where high performing responsible workers are analyzing their own jobs. There is a panel set up with usually six to eight of these
22 employees. Over a two-day period, these “skilled” workers are identifying the tasks and duties that make up their jobs. The panel is directed under an external source or someone not directly involved in the process (could be an instructor or potentially an HR representative that understands this process and can lead the panel) While using a modified brainstorming process like a storyboard technique the panel analyzes their job-related tasks. The final result of this describes all the specific duties and tasks that the employees must perform, this is usually an occupational profile of the employee. It is noted that tasks should be ranked on their criticality, most time consuming, new worker training needs, and veteran worker training needs. Step two and three is referred to as the “Validation process” the occupational profile is validated using various methods. In a validation workshop, a peer review process is used to check the initial profile. Once that is done, the profile can be analyzed by means of a management review, so that the management team can synthesize what the employees said, and what they expect and think the job should encompass. Steps four and Five are the “Curriculum development” process.
Once the occupational profile has been validated, a task analysis is conducted to define further of the job. A curriculum can be developed from using the validated profile and task analysis that was conducted. From using this model, employers/managers can better understand if the current employees need more development or if they are fit to perform their described tasks.
Step 4: Complete preliminary competency assessments and develop estimates of competency needs for targeted employees.
For the in-depth evaluation, supervisors or managers judged to be experts in the work that must be performed are the best sources of information. Experts should evaluate only those who are under their knowledges. The ratings from the supervisor should be taken into account as well as supervisors’ ratings. Data that is of the best quality must be submitted for assessment.
Step 5: Identify employee competency development needs and life-career and preferences.
We described employee development as an activity which leads to ongoing learning and personal growth and contributes to the achievement of individual and organizational goals. For example, there are two types of development needs according to (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) competency development needs and life-career needs and preferences. These needs are evaluated separately with various approaches. HR Practitioners incorporate knowledge from each participant into a competence and a life-career profile after data from both fields are available. The organization plays an important role in developing the structure for this work and ensuring that participants are treated and communicated to properly with data and interpretations. The details provided in the profiles can allow managers to align work with their needs and priorities. As the creation of this composite profile depends on the types of information that are obtained and the aims of the employees’ development process, general guidelines for the procedure should be considered.
The three types of competencies noted in Step 3 (functional or technical, daily living or basic skills, and abstract) could affect the organization’s ability to realize successful or
23 exemplary work performance according to (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004). Employment readiness experts can categorize and align individual developmental needs with developmental opportunities through three types of competency assessment. Competencies of the first two- types in general are malleable, but abstract competencies, almost without exception, are not trainable. A great deal of planning is needed in finding or developing new solutions. Every company must come up with a unique solution. Every company must come up with a unique solution to the problems it faces. In the beginning stages of new projects, flexibility and responsiveness are essential to the success of long-term participation. Competencies can be categorized as follows: awareness, knowledge, and aptitude. Making a list of different competencies against needs will help the start-up process manager to come up with what resources are required.
There are many different explanations of life-career needs and preferences of living as theorists. In (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) experience, however, customers in corporate and private practices have consistently referred to the following six life-career needs:
• A need to achieve, motivated by the desire for personal competence and self-mastery.
• A need to produce work results or outputs with perceived values, or, in other words, finding work that has personal meaning.
• A need to perform work that personally enjoyable.
• A need to exercise a degree of control over the performance of one’s work activities as well as when and under what conditions one performs work.
• A need for quality information, time to process the information, and an arena in which employees can use the information to actively pursue their preferences.
• A need for time away from work for activities such as, for example, hobbies, recreation, care giving, independent learning or personal growth, physical rest, and spiritual development.
This final need poses a key point in terms of the design and execution of the process of employee growth. When staff participate in a growth phase, they must recognize that their full sense of fulfillment does not originate from their positions as workers. “As Bolles (2002) noted, satisfaction comes from an integration of life roles and activities that include work, leisure, learning, and family. The life-career concept is a major philosophical change for a typical organization. It not only directs attention to facets or life other than work but also stresses that success is not confined to advancement in an employee’s work-for-hire.” ( (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) To solve these problems, a company needs a mutual inventory of the needs and desires of its employees. The probably best idea we can make is to assemble a focus group that represents all the participants, in terms of time and expenses. If required, this group may be up to 20 people. HR practitioners will generate a complete list of needs and desires for life-careers shared by the community members by leading a facilitated discussion. A panel of topic experts will review the list and draft questionnaire compiled from the list, to ensure additional comprehensiveness. The final document incorporating their recommendations and amendments will then be circulated to all beginning participants, instructing them to choose their 5 most
24 important life career requirements and preferences, and to measure their relevance in relation to current or expected life or working conditions in those five requirements or preferences. After analyzing the results, participants can gain an extensive understanding and be useful in making further plans of their life career needs and preferences. If participants agree to put their names on the questionnaires, management would be willing, when assessing the tasks and growth opportunities, to consult these personalized records of their career preferences.
Step 6: Draft objectives for the employee development process and identify possible delivery methods for development services.
The objective of any competency-based employee development should include one or more statement objectives. The following statements are as the following according to (Dubois &
Rothwell, 2004).
• To ensure an adequate and balanced company pool so that the organization can achieve its strategic goals and business objectives.
• To communicate to employees the organization’s support of their continuous learning and the understanding and pursuit of their life-career preferences.
• To ensure that work assignments are aligned with employees’ competency strengths and the successful pursuit of their life-career preferences.
• To serve as an employment to attract exemplary performers.
• To encourage the retention of fully successful and exemplary performers.
• To provide less productive employees with self-insight in an ethical and professional manner and encourage them to take responsibility for their daily work and life-career preferences, possibly including outplacement.
The facilitator is the one in charge of selecting one or more of the statements stated above.
There are numerous employee development resources available in various locations.
Employers/mangers might seek learning opportunities for employees such as: (Dubois &
Rothwell, 2004).
• Web-based and distance learning.
• Embedded learning.
• On-the-job learning with peers or site-assigned facilitators.
• Coaching from a supervisor, manager, or executive.
• Professional counseling, career counseling, or assistance from a certified career development facilitator.
• Professional or trade conferences, seminars, and workshops.
• Job or work rotation.
• Learning opportunities provided by labor or other organizations.
• Group-based life-career exploration or planning activities.
• Community college, 4-year college, and university courses or other offerings, including adult or continuing education.
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• Community-based adult or continuing learning.
• Employee-initiated learning projects. (for example, self-study projects, or reading programs).
Step 7: Develop a plan for the start-up process.
Competency-based employee development initiatives based on skills can be hard to execute and cannot be fully implemented and accomplished in one attempt. Many who follow this strategy must have a realistic attitude and hope to learn as they go. Method achievements should be characterized by realistic expectations, with respect to available resources and organizational attitudes towards the process and the results. (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) giving the following examples of items that should be reviewed before beginning the development of the start-up plan:
• The organization’s strategic goals or objectives.
• The competency needs to be addressed.
• Competency assessment data for participating employees.
• Estimates of participating employees’ life-career preferences, the effect of those preferences on the achievement of work, optimal placement of employees to complete that work, and employees’ competency development needs.
• Estimates of the types and volume of employee development activities needed to close competency gaps.
• Summary of participating employees’ life-career preferences and the impact on meeting work placement and competency development needs.
• The time frame for completing start-up activities.
• Possible roadblocks to achieving start-up outcomes and ways in which to overcome them.
A well-designed start-up plan would lead to the establishment by corporate leaders of a high-quality staff development process. The investment in time and effort is worth making a tight but yet flexible plan is well worth the investment of effort and time. The plan should meet the following criteria and should be confirmed by the start-up process manager according to (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004):
• Is absolutely consistent with the start-up process objectives.
• Uses only those resources that management has already committed to completion of the project.
• Is easy to understand.
• Is automated so that it can be easily modified, annotated, and distributed.
• Communicates the agreed-upon results or deliverables needed for project success.
• Includes task required to produce administrative and other documents for key project stages (the time and effort needed to produce or acquire these items is often underestimated).
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• Includes tasks and time needed to obtain, review, evaluate, or implement vendor products such as a computer-based career guidance system.
• Begins identification of process evaluation activities.
Once again, the start-up manager is responsible for providing the ongoing internal communication with the start-up design and ultimately the implementation. To make this task easier a standardized project-planning matrix can be used. Each sequence of the matrix identifies a major project task and any main tasks below that are crucial to the success of the work. The rows of the matrix will state the major project task and below the task and key idea subtasks that are of critical importance for the succession of the task. The columns in the matrix list details for each task. “These details should include, at a minimum, the task output, result, deliverable, or outcome; target completion date’ actual completion date; resources assigned to the tasks; and inputs to the tasks, such as earlier deliverables, materials, decisions, and so forth.”
(Dubois & Rothwell, 2004)
Step 8: Brief senior managers and organize an advisory panel.
The Start-up process manager is now well ready to tell top organizational leaders about the project with the data collected and generated in the past phases. (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) say the main objectives of this briefing are to ensure the following:
• Senior leaders understand the need for certain employee competencies as part of the organization’s talent pool. The critical data to support the need should be presented and explained in detail. Leaders must also understand the consequences if these competencies are not available when required for organizational success.
• Senior leaders understand the advantages of taking a holistic view of employee development by accommodating employees’ life-career preferences while developing their competencies and making work placement decisions.
• Senior leaders are prepared to commit the resources needed for a successful start-up.
Senior leaders should also appoint an advisory board for employee growth and prepare a list of duties for the board members. The consulting panel will study, evaluate and report on the project and will give the start-up process manager advice on its implementation.
Step 9: Brief advisory panel members.
Senior managers should receive the same briefing as the committee members. It is important for them to understand their specific responsibilities and the timetable for carrying them out in order to succeed. Panel members present a protected or no-fault environment where start-up ideas and systems can be developed. In this manner, the new system could facilitate a whole range of activities that the learning participants will require after their EMA. Advisory panel members play an essential role to review and interpret process evaluation information for improvement. These leaders should be interviewed on an ad hoc basis as required.
27 Step 10: Implement and evaluate the start-up process.
A skill-based staff development process cannot be implemented in one fashion. Every corporate environment needs its own unique approach. There are also only general guidelines for implementing and reviewing the procedure.
Firstly, HR practitioners must confirm the availability and the ready-for-use of necessary resources (accommodation, staff, materials, support mechanisms) and ready for immediate usage. Premature launch may lead to failure, dissatisfaction between employees and management, improper use of existing employee development procedures, ethical breaches, breached confidentially, errors in employees’ evaluations/assessments, poor services and other unfortunate events. As in this particular application for HR reputation is important, it is advisable not to risk any disaster but to postpone its implementation into the organization.
Secondly, it must ensure that the sequence of operations is still systematic. Organizational circumstances must dictate where and in what way these actions are taken, the organization’s conditions must determine, but the minimum that the start-up process manager must achieve is that following:
• Continuing to review the process philosophy and goals and all contracts with sponsors, executives, as well as any that might have been made, and clarify or adjust them with employees, is critical. If things change, adjust the agreement to new conditions, but remind everyone so that they know what is being done. Complete and correct information is needed in order to achieve complete communication.
• Explain the project's intended goals and timelines, needs, and how participating staff and the managers will be involved. Also, provide brief career advancement planning for all group members and the projects they will be working on before each group is up and running. It is very unfortunate that the briefing's timing and content may be an issue at this point. It is imperative, on one hand, to cultivate curiosity and excitement about the project performance, but equally so, you must not boost expectations or place limitations on its progress. In a fast-changing market, dynamic environment, today, the advancement of the company depends on adjusting its training goals to fit in with individual needs.
• Although competency interviews have not yet been completed, expand the individual competency surveys to identify all the competencies required by the participants. The project's credible competency evaluation data is vital to the project's progress,
• Determine the elements of the training should include in order to fulfill the needs of the human resources life cycle Other examples include what career development measurements will be used, who will be giving the tests, and how they will the results be implemented, and how they will the results be given to the participants? Will you need to be certified? For maintaining assessment protection, it is necessary to meet all the requirements that are outlined in this topic. Does everybody in the arrangement acknowledged the need for secrecy, and has all been done within the operation?
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• Facilitate connecting and analyzing competency to participants preferred future occupations and providing data for them, as well as teaching them how to determine their interest in career growth, as opposed to stagnant status, and providing information on each with opportunities for advancement. This allows you to perform pre-decide a briefing procedure and decide who will carry out the briefings before implementing it.
How will these programs be defined and provided to an acceptable in the event that an employee requires more assistance? An investment source is required to achieve this aim Consideration of performance and skills requirements must be part of a learning program for workers' when conducting performance evaluations.
• Evaluate the development needs of participants and define development activities to address these needs. Evaluate differences between needs and opportunities for growth.
• Specify job placement and employment strategies for workers to fit jobs consistent with their skills and interests in life. Until using them, verify the legality of procedures.
• When each department and/division has engaged in the formal start-up activities, let them know of implementation efforts that have already been completed. The theory, the program will operate around, the foundation, and goals, and requirements for their use for both managers and staff. Also, define the direction for training will include the advantages and obligations it offers for all. Additionally, an explanation of the program follows to define all the programs and how they are carried out is outlined I believe this should encourage employees and their superiors to interact at length and play a key role in this presentation.
• Make a list of all the divisions and departments which have engaged in a structured start-up. Tell them about everything that you have already started. People should be using your imagination because of the philosophy, the program will work because of the foundation, and managers and staff will make use of the program's objectives and specifications. Also, describe the scope of training as benefits and obligations.
Furthermore, the following section discusses all of the systems and how they are implemented is included to help readers better understand it. Encouraging further interactions between workers, along with the enhancement of their supervisory positions, would help motivate them to engage and participate in this presentation.
Step 11: Brief senior managers on outcomes and lessons learned.
Since each application will have its own information requirements for the senior management. (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004) say the following key points should be covered:
• Review start-up process objectives and their relationship to the organization’s strategic goals, business objectives, and competency needs.
• Highlight the purposes of both life-career and competency assessment, how each was completed, the results that were achieved, and the value of both employees and the organization.
• Summarize the work completed to date.
• Identify successes and lessons learned.
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• Document the impact of employee competency acquisitions that resulted directly from start-up activities.
• Provide case reports or testimonials of successes from participating employees and their managers.
• Cite unintended benefits or outcomes that were realized.
• Identify and give frank, specific reasons for process start-up objectives that were not achieved. Explore the issues with participating senior managers.
• Recommend institutionalizing a competency-based employee development process in the organization. List the resources and management support needed to create a continuous, strategically focused process that will benefit both the organization and its employees.
Step 12: Institutionalize and evaluate the employee development process.
To start and succeed, senior leaders must make a commitment to a competency-based process. If this is done, the successful start-up normally goes deeper with the current audience and grows to include a larger one. Once conditions have been checked, HR professionals should examine the following issues that (Dubois & Rothwell, 2004)specify:
• Key leaders agree on a clear philosophy and framework for a competency-based employee development process.
• The philosophy and framework are communicated throughout the organization.
• Adequate resources have been committed to institutionalize the process.
• A formal, continuous assessment mechanism is in place to track process accomplishments and identify areas for improvement.
In addition, how can we design and perform the evaluation? Planning for assessment started at the beginning of this project and was completed in Phase 7. Employers should review all human resources practices and decide on any modifications needed. This is the form of intervention fits the CIPP (context, input, process, product) model nicely. There are several programs available from the American Society for Training and Development that can help employers/managers evaluate your learning outcomes. Because ROI is to be determined by management, it should be thoroughly explored, and detailed documentation given to all management. Using an independent judge wherever possible.
6.1 CIPP Model
The CIPP evaluation model was created by Daniel Stufflebeam in the 1960s. In a general sense, it is a decision-oriented design systematically collecting information about the program.
It uncovers the capabilities and constraints, and to further increase its capacity or make plans for the next stages of development. According to the Yale website (Poorvu Center for teaching and learning) they say “Users of this model are often focused on management-oriented evaluation, as this framework combines four stages of evaluation. The focus is on continuous improvement by concentrating on four areas of a program: the overall goal or mission (Context Evaluation); the plans and resources (Input Evaluation); the activities or components (Process
30 Evaluation); and the outcomes or objectives (Product Evaluation).” (Yale, Poorvu Center for teaching and learning)
Figure 4 CIPP Evaluation Model
Note that the competency-based employee development plan should be on a continuous improvement loop as employees develop, they will require new skills and abilities to continue this improvement. It is not a one-and-done development plan. As an example, when an organization redefines its business goals or shifts its attention it should also review its competency maps to be certain that it all aligns together (Costa, 2020). There needs to be an evaluation at some time whether its every 6 months, year, or many years. It depends on the organization and the employees within. Without the continuous improvements being made as time goes on, employees won’t be developing at a certain point and won’t be able to achieve new needs and wants.
7 How organizations fail with motivation and competency management
The implementation of a competency project is a very large task to complete. A competency project succeeds or fails by the way it is implemented in an organization (Palan, 2003), wherever or whatever parts of the project are successful can be from a very clear understanding of what it is the added value from this to the organization, not just the competency process. While clarity of the project is important to understand the reasoning why it’s in place there can also be failure from the leaders not understanding the life-career approach.
Context, Input, Process, Product (CIPP) Evaluation Model
Goals:
- Beneficiaries - Needs - Resources - Problems - Background
Outcomes:
- Impact - Effectiveness - Transportability - Sustainability -Adjustment
Plans:
- Stakeholders -Strategies - Budget - Coverage - Research
fd Actions:
- Develop
` - Implement
- Monitor - Feedback Context
Evaluation
Product Evaluation
Process Evaluation
Input Evaluation Core
Values
31 An employee development process (whether competency based or traditional) can easily result to failure when the organization’s leaders do not understand the value of the life-career approach and won’t continue to endorse its use (Purushotham, Somassundaram, & Naik), the person who leads the workforce development initiative must continuously ensure the value of their practice is recognized by policy makers and senior managers.
7.1 Failure starting from the top
It is important when shifting to a competency-driven approach for company and employee performance to have strategic backing from their senior level executives/managers.
Without these senior level employees buying in, a competency project will fall apart.
Competencies are all about aligning the skills, behaviors, and knowledge of every employee so that the organization can seamlessly work together to achieve the organizations goals. Without the senior level buy in, a competency will languish. It will either deteriorate or leadership will actively halt the project, believing it to be a distraction with no value added (Jaynes, 2019). It all starts with the top management getting involved and believing that the organization will benefit from using a competency-based employee development plan. This can be a bit tricky if the senior level employees have never had any experience with a competency-based employee development plan, because most likely they will have doubts and cannot see the benefits from it if they have never heard of one or seen one succeed. Piggy backing off of this “Dubois &
Rothwell, 2004” said in step 12 of the competency-based employee development process to start and succeed, senior leaders must make a commitment to a competency-based process.
Agreeing that the senior level employees need to have full commitment in order to be successful in competency management.
7.2 Unclearly defined competencies
Josh Bersin (a Deloitte Industry Analyst) states “86 percent of HR managers believe that competency management is critical to their success… but only 15 percent believe that their competencies are well-defined at an enterprise level.” (Jaynes, 2019). The great thing about competencies is that they can be observed, evaluated, and measured. Competencies that are well-defined eliminate all the guesswork and biases relating to performance relating decisions.
The use of competencies skills to evaluate talent and for recruiting/hiring guides future learning and development plans and forms the future leaders with the progression of people and with the evolving environment.
7.3 Lack of involvement by the key stakeholders
As explained in previous sections the importance of having senior level employees onboard with the implementation of the competency-based employee development plan. We must not forget to include middle managers and team leaders out from the implementation process. Doing so may create two major problems according to “Jaynes 2019”. Firstly, it can be quite difficult to define the competencies for certain job functions without their inputs.
Ending up with failure in the competency-based employee development plan in the future.
Secondly, if the competency plan does not include the jobs that employees do every day, managers will not care. Efforts for measuring the performance will eventually become a
