Talent and competency based human resource management

Introduction

The organisational life cycle theory postulates that organisations grow, reach maturity, decline and die (Cameron & Whitton 1981). However, owners, shareholders and managers want their organisations to continue to grow indefinitely. At least in theory, organisations may continue to grow, mature and avoid decline and death if they can sustainably adopt management models that keep the organisation competitive. With regards to people management, McClelland (1973) and Peters & Waterman (1982) suggest that managers seeking to keep their business competitive will always strive to attract, utilise, and retain the most talented and competent staff in order to continuously keep the organisation vibrant and prosperous. However, the rigidity of routine laden personnel management and an inadequate emphasis on talent and competencies under the human resource management school has led to some advances in search of the best approaches to managing human capital by filling in gaps in traditional human resource management principles, techniques and practices.

Conceptualisation of talent and competence

Talent and competence based human resource management is an approach to managing people that incorporates talent and competency criteria in decision making, choice of techniques and activities affecting different areas of human resource management functions and practices.

What is talent?

Shoemaker (1994) in Shoemaker & Jonker (2005: 506) defines ‘talent as above average gift-ness towards a task through which an employee creates added value in his or her work’. The implication is that, within the context of organisations, jobs and tasks, talent is a gift which an employee may or may not have and will define the extent to which organisations can excel through excellently done jobs and tasks. That excellence has to come from employees with excellent talents. This perspective would suggest that ‘talent’ is something that belongs to an individual and which has to be explored, developed and utilised by managers. The task of the manager is to identify individuals with ‘exceptional gifts’ or those with potential attract and reorient them to fit the organisational context. Similarly, Buckingham (2006) looks at a talent as something that has to be valuable to the performance of the individual and an organisation. However, he avoids the use of the word ‘gift’, perhaps because someone may ‘lack’ a ‘clearly observable gift’ but possesses the potential for development, one which can lead to rediscovering one’s own talents (gifts), to develop and utilise them. Therefore, he defines talent as ‘a recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behaviour that can be productively applied’. For Buckingham, a talent has to be felt or observed. It is like an artist who can demonstrate that art in speaking, writing, or playing etc. Once someone has that certain talent for art, no one can take it from him or her. However, since it is possible for talent to be developed through training and development, undoubtedly, employers would hunt for rare talents, nurture, and develop them in order to give their organisations a competitive edge.

Rothwell & Kazanas (1993) recommend that organisations manage talents strategically by adopting a holistic approach. This will involve a process of linking business/organisational strategy with a clear talent management strategy. The talent management system will involve talent identification, attraction, development and rewarding appropriately. The main indicator of an effective talent management system is the business’/organisation’s achievements in terms of results.

What is competence?

The concept ‘competence’ has been used in general management for many decades to describe a set of attributes that lead to an employee performing better than others. Such attributes constitute ‘talents’. The limitations of personnel management as a discipline and profession of people management during the late 1960s and 1970s and the evolution of human resource management philosophy in the 1980s have adapted and developed the concept of competence in human resource management more professionally. It is now common knowledge that human resource management becomes more effective when a competence framework and technique is used (Horton 2000).

Spencer & Spencer (1993: 9) define competency as ‘an underlying characteristic of an individual that is causally related to criterion referenced as effective or superior performance in a job or situation’. This definition suggests that particular individual personality characteristics define what a person is and predict what he or she can do and achieve in a particular job, and such characteristics differentiate the potential performance of one person from another. The Aristotelian philosophy of ‘for every effect there is a cause’, can be seen in a job situation, that good or bad job performance is caused by individual jobholders who possess specific characteristics related to the job requirement.

Therefore, competency is related to the outcomes that define effective performance. These are the aspects of the job where a person is competent; this involves things such as preparing an audit or chairing a meeting. People demonstrate competence by applying their competencies within the work environment. This means that competency is observable behaviour carried out in order to achieve the desired outcomes. In other words, it is this behaviour that underpins successful performance. For example, a successful artist should be able to entertain the audience. The ability to entertain in a specific manner constitutes ones competencies. Therefore, competence can be described as a mixture of skills, related to knowledge, qualifications and attributes in order to do a job or task. A competence will have standards that can be described as generally accepted levels or specifications of performance which set out those skills, knowledge and attitudes required to operate effectively.

Spencer & Spencer (1993) distinguish five characteristics of competences under what they call the ‘Iceberg Model’ that are critical for understanding the whole of competency based human resource management. The core competencies are invisible while the rest are visible. The invisible competencies are motives and traits and self-concepts. The motives are the distinctive behavioural drives that explain why an individual takes certain actions related to performance, which are not necessarily taken by another individual. The most successful leaders and managers tend to possess an urge for continuous improvement through setting demanding strategic objectives and constantly striving to achieve them. The key driving force is a sense of achievement and fulfilment. Traits are inborn physical characteristics that are required in certain jobs more than others. For example, physical appearance and eye contact matters for employees working on a customer care desk more than shop floor workers who may require more physical strength. Self-concept is what determines what we think and our own value judgement. It involves perceptions, attitudes, values and feelings. Positive self-concept is a characteristic defining successful job holders in terms of confidence, creativity, decision making, risk taking and team leading. The second category of competencies is knowledge and skills, which are visible because they are usually developed through education, training and development and can be assessed by examinations, unlike the first category, which is more intrinsic.

The desired attribute is typically what is required to provide a professional service to the citizen - client. Proficiency levels for technical and functional competencies describe the output and outcomes produced according to a proficiency scale (scale of expertise) that describes what is needed on the job using a range of designated proficiency indicators, such as quality, speed, efficiency and application etc. These exist within certain work and organisational constraints (e.g. equipment and other job aids).

The behavioural indicators for each proficiency level will include what the person does when displaying the competency. It is behaviour, action or psychomotor response that an observer can see or expect to see. Although the genesis of the concept of competence is not very clear, it started to appear more often in the 1970s when, in 1973, a psychologist David McClelland published his article in the American Psychologist Journal ‘Testing for Competencies rather than for Intelligence’. In his article, the author postulates that behavioural traits and characteristics were much more effective than aptitude tests in determining who was successful in job performance. Such traits and characteristics were able to distinguish a superior from an average performer. However, it is rather unrealistic to list, explain or describe all behavioural characteristics that define with precision what ‘competence’ is, mainly because some competencies possessed by a person may affect job performance but may not be clearly observable.

Boyatzis (1982) developed a model of organisational performance by taking on board employee competence, job design and the organisational context. The organisational environment includes the economy, social, political, industry, strategic positioning and competition. Fundamentally, there are three types of competencies.

· Core competencies. Core competence forms the basis of organisational strategic direction. It is what makes the organisation different from others and hence allows it to perform better than the competitors. Core competencies constitute underlying attributes, skills, knowledge, motives, perceptions and attitudes that make the organisation what it is and what it stands for. Core competencies are institutionalised and should usually be possessed by all the employees. These competencies are absolutely necessary for achieving results in the job and the organisation. The core competencies would include being hard working, having a positive attitude towards work, quality result orientation and commitment to the work.

· Leadership and managerial competencies. These are behavioural characteristics that are necessary for successful managing and leading the organisation through individuals and teams to achieve the defined vision, mission and objectives. They include having vision, creativity and innovation, strategic thinking, communication and influence.

· Functional Competencies. These are job specific competencies required to perform a task. For example, a tailor has to be competent in tailoring, and an accountant has to be competent in preparing final accounts.