How to Map Competencies of Employees

To effectively align talent with business goals, it is essential to map competencies of employees to their roles and organizational strategy.  Competency mapping is a powerful tool that helps modern organizations like yours to identify skills your employees need to perform their roles effectively. It offers a roadmap to uncover your team’s full capabilities to fit your organizational strategy and support business goals. It helps you identify your employees’ strengths and offer them the required upskilling training for better performance. It offers them a clear path for career progression thereby increasing employee engagement and contributing to effective succession planning. 

In this article, we will share a detailed guide on how to map competencies of employees for building high-performing teams.

How to Map Competencies of Employees

Competency mapping offers a systematic approach to identifying and building key competencies for various job roles within your organization.

Let us explore each of these steps in detail.

#1. Analyze Competencies of Existing Employees

Assess and evaluate the competencies of your current employees via self-assessment tests, interviews, and performance evaluations. This will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your employees and determine the areas that require further development.

Use TalentGuard’s talent assessment tool to evaluate your employees’ skills, experience, work-style preferences, and behavioral indicators and conduct comprehensive self-assessments. Gain accurate insights into their capabilities and discover ways to leverage these existing talents effectively for strategic business growth. 

You can also track the evolution of their skills and proficiency over time to understand whether they are ready to meet future market demands.

#2. Set Your Goals

Now that you know your employees’ current standing, define what you want to accomplish with competency mapping activity. This will help you set strategic goals and provide a foundation for competency mapping. Some of the most common competency mapping goals include –

• Enhancing employee skills, performance, and productivity.
• Improving employee training and development programs.
• Preparing your employees for new leadership positions.

For example, if your organization is expanding into new markets, your goal could be ensuring that your sales team is skilled in cross-cultural communication. 

Once you have defined and set clear goals, you break those down into specific, measurable objectives. Continuing our above example, the broader goal can have the following actionable objectives.

• Improving cross-cultural communication skills via a training program within the next six months.
• Implementing new customer service SOPs for handling diverse sets of customers.
• Increasing the CSAT scores by 20% by next quarter.

Remember setting goals upfront ensures a clear direction for competency mapping. Further, it makes it empirical as each objective is directly linked with a relevant metric. 

#3. Define the Scope of the Mapping Process

Ensure that your competency mapping efforts align with your organization’s priorities.  For instance, if your goal is to improve cross-cultural communication in customer-facing teams, it would be ineffective to include employees from other departments like finance or operations in the competency mapping process. Hence, it is important to define the scope of your mapping process. This will avoid addressing irrelevant resources or wasting time on competencies that do not directly contribute to your goals.

Identify the team or department where you want to focus your competency mapping efforts. Ask yourself if you wish to focus on a specific team or want to map competencies across your entire organization. This will ensure your competency mapping is rightly targeted and aligns with your immediate business needs.

Next, set up a team of key stakeholders who will oversee and contribute to competency mapping. Build a cross-functional team consisting of department heads,  subject matter experts, and HR professionals to lead the process. 

#4. Conduct a Job Analysis to Spot the Gaps

Perform a job analysis to identify the key competencies required for each role and pinpoint any potential competency gaps. Review existing job descriptions to understand the core responsibilities and relevant skills for each job role. Have a word with managers and team leaders to identify what skill sets are important for each role. 

To streamline the job analysis process, you can use TalentGuard’s Skill and Job Description Generation tool which uses AI to generate accurate job profiles aligned with industry standards. Generate a comprehensive skill set containing up to 30 skills for each job role. And, then develop a skill profile that shares detailed descriptions outlining requirements and expectations for each skill. Thus, create a 360-degree view of job requirements and existing skill gaps efficiently. 

#5. Determine the Type of Competencies You Wish to Map

Identify and classify the competencies required to align your organization’s workforce capabilities with your strategic goals. There are different types of competencies addressing various aspects of job performance. 

#6. Compile the Final Competencies Lists

Outline the list of competencies to create a competency framework for employee performance. Consider the above-mentioned types of competencies and list down relevant competencies based on the job roles and your organizational goals. This will ensure that you have a structured reference and a balanced approach to performance management.

Continuing our example, here are the different types of competencies.

Next, define the proficiency levels for each competency to set the right performance expectations. This will also help in your skill development initiatives. For example, you can define proficiency levels for cross-cultural communication in customer-facing roles as follows –

• Beginner – To recognize the basic cultural differences and adjust communication style accordingly.
• Intermediate – To be aware of culture and adapt communication style based on cultural context.
• Advanced – To use empathy and culture-specific knowledge to create rapport with customers.
• Expert – To have a deep understanding of cultural values, non-verbal cues, and language.

Lastly, seek feedback from your competency mapping team to ensure these chosen competencies align well with the job requirements and business objectives.

#7. Develop a Competency Model for Each Role

List down the important abilities/skills for each role and connect them to key responsibilities. This will provide clarification on how each competency will contribute to the role’s success. 

In the case of our example, competencies like cross-cultural communication and active listening are essential skills that directly impact job responsibilities like handling diverse customers and resolving their issues.

Next, map these competencies to the respective roles by creating a list of tasks associated with each role. Write down detailed competency descriptions that offer an overview of skills required for the role, expected proficiency level, and how they contribute to job success.

Here is an example – 

Develop an action plan for putting competency mapping into practice. Outline the steps required to build and enhance these newly discovered skills and run them by your competency mapping team.

TalentGuard can automatically build intuitive development plans that ensure your employee development objectives are met. It can set and track goals based on the identified competencies and business objectives. 

#8. Implement and Integrate It Into HR Processes

Once you have an action plan, start integrating it with your HR processes to get started with competency mapping. Revise your job descriptions by adding relevant competencies to the job roles. This will help your employees understand how the competency mapping framework will support their career progression. 

Integrate competency assessments into your performance reviews for more structured evaluation and tracking of employee skills. This will also help you identify employees’ potential to take on leadership roles and give direction to succession planning efforts.

Revamp your training and development initiatives to design programs that enhance the employees’ competencies and help them chart their career paths with the right career development advice.

#9. Provide Team Members with Necessary Resources

Ensure that your employees have the necessary tools and resources to support them throughout the competency mapping process. Compile extensive documentation that clearly outlines the competencies you are mapping, the expected outcomes, and how these relate to both, organizational objectives and personal development.

You can leverage TalentGuard’s Intelligent Mapping tool to ensure employees can access actionable insights and tailored resources throughout their skill development journey. Powered by advanced AI, this tool can dynamically map learning resources to specific skills offering your employees personalized support.

Form a team of mentors who can guide employees and offer support during the mapping process. Install open communication channels and conduct regular check-ins to ensure your employees can discuss their challenges and share their progress. Thus, creating a welcoming and collaborative environment.

#10. Review Your Competency Framework and Continually Make Improvements

Lastly, ensure that your competency mapping framework remains aligned with your evolving business needs, employee development goals, and industry trends. Review this framework regularly and make improvements to enhance the accuracy of competency mapping. 

Competency Mapping Template for You

Here is a sample competency mapping template for you.

Get Started with Competency Mapping with TalentGuard

Competency mapping breaks down each job role into an inventory of skills and abilities. It enables you to set clear standards for various job roles. However, creating a competency map is not a one-time thing. It is an ongoing activity that needs to be regularly updated to ensure growth within your team. 

TalentGuard offers a suite of tools to help you map the competencies of your workforce. You can identify and develop your team’s skills to fill knowledge gaps and leverage opportunities for development to build high-performing teams. Schedule a demo to see TalentGuard in action and improve your competency mapping strategy.

FAQs

• What is the main purpose of competency mapping?
  Competency mapping aims to identify specific skills or abilities employees need to succeed in their roles. It aligns skills with job requirements and helps you close skill gaps to enhance team performance.
• What are the different types of competency mapping?
  Some of the types of competencies include core competencies, technical competencies, functional competencies, behavioral competencies, and leadership competencies.
• What are the pros and cons if we map competencies of employees?
  Competency mapping helps align employees’ skills with business needs, identify training opportunities, and improve talent management. However, it can be time-consuming activity. You may be required to regularly update it to stay relevant with evolving job roles.
• Is skill assessment and competency mapping the same?
  No. Skill assessment focuses on evaluating your employees’ current abilities, while competency mapping defines the skills and behaviors required to succeed in specific roles.

Share an example to map competencies of employees.
A customer service representative role involves competencies like effective communication, empathy, and problem-solving. These competencies are mapped to behaviors such as resolving complaints efficiently and handling customer inquiries calmly.

To learn more about the process to map competencies of employees, request a meeting.