Seniority is Overrated, Focus on Competencies Instead: A Call for the Competency-Based Staffing Model
How often have you heard the following in your organisation?
- You’re too young to take on that role!
- It’s about time for Mr YYY to get promoted next year because that’s the time norm.
If you’re familiar with the 2 comments above, read on for an alternative method that your organisation can adopt. I believe the Seniority-Based Staffing Model sub-optimises organisational effectiveness and the Competency-Based Staffing Model should become the norm in the modern workplace to improve its staff morale and performance by putting the right people with the right motivation to the right jobs, at the right time. From my experience in bridging performance gaps in organisations, an organisation that understands how to optimise its people’s resources through targetted competency build-up will perform better than one that does not.
The Seniority-Based Staffing Model
The Seniority-Based Staffing Model sets certain seniority requirements on an individual’s tenure in the current role, years of experience, or age to determine if one is suitable to take on additional responsibilities.
Benefits of the Seniority-Based Staffing Model
The seniority-based approach is still adopted by some organisations due to its ease of implementation and efficiency for superiors to manage staffing processes.
- Ease of screening potential candidates from a large pool of individuals.
- Easy yardstick for individuals to track their own progression and provides a sense of security that they would be considered for a role that they desire as long as they stay with the organisation.
Problems with the Seniority-Based Staffing Model
There are 2 main issues with the Seniority-Based Staffing Model:
- Number of years on the job ≠ Ability to solve problems at a larger scale. Promotion and staffing based on seniority and experience level doesn’t take into account a person’s readiness and ability to take on the new role. A more systematic manner of talent identification should be adopted to resolve the fallacy that an older staff with more years on the job is able to perform in a different role. (Laurence Peter describes the phenomenon of how people get promoted to the “level of respective incompetence” [my summary and reflections from the book in this post]).
- Not getting the best person for the role. Stating an experience bracket for a role down-prioritises individuals who meet the role’s requirements but fall out of the “time norm” determined by the firm. This sub-optimises the organisation’s ability to perform better with its current resources.
Implications of the seniority-based model:
a. Excluding high performers who are ready and willing to perform earlier than the “norm”.
b. Excluding late bloomers who have the right skills to take on the role.
c. Sub-optimising organisational effectiveness to support the less competent individual in the new role (either promising subordinates need to step up, or the superior needing to step down to bridge the competency gaps).
d. Creating an organisation where we reward the “mediocre”, punish the highly talented young individuals, and demoralise the loyal late bloomers. All factors above result in sub-optimised organizational effectiveness.
The Competency-Based Staffing Model
The Competency-Based Staffing Model allows organisations to find the best person for the right job in a more deliberate manner by:
- Being systematic in talent identification within the organisation and avoid situations where staffing is based on the inherent blindspots/ biases of managers who think that an individual is suitable and ready for the role in question.
- Improving transparency in the organisation’s staffing process.
- Providing a structured development pathway for individuals who want to take on additional roles, or wish to pivot to other roles in the firm.
Three Key Tenants of the Competency-Based Staffing Model:
- Competency Mapping: Identifying skillsets required for different roles.
- Documentation of Technical Competency: Technical competency acquired should be documented and tagged to the individual.
- Validation of Soft Skills: Competencies in soft skills should be validated beyond the superiors.
Competency Mapping: Identifying skillsets required for different roles
First, the organisation needs to determine the skills an individual would need to succeed in the different roles. McKinsey developed the T-shaped learner’s profile that states the personalised skill profile of each learner. This model can be adapted to show that each role undertaken by each employee requires different skills to complete the T-profile.
Example: A programmer would require in-depth knowledge on coding while requiring less interpersonal skills. This contrasts with a UI/UX designer who will require a high degree of stakeholder management competency to be balanced with technical UI/UX knowledge.
The process of skills and competency mapping is a massive undertaking as every employee focuses on different aspects of the firm’s operations. It can be implemented in stages starting with a broader competency map for staff by functional groups, and narrowing down to individual roles subsequently.
Documentation of Technical Competency: Technical competency acquired should be documented and tagged to the individual
Technical competencies would need to be tracked to ensure that competencies used to determine if an individual is ready to take on another role is fair and accurate. Technical competency build-up can be from formal training courses, micro learning sessions, or On-Job-Trainings (OJT). This record can be kept at the firm or national level based on the scale of implementation.
Ensuring a fair and equal playing field. There is a need to ensure that competencies of different levels are calibrated to ensure consistency and effectiveness. This ensures that staff competencies are matched to the correct expertise levels required for the different roles. Google’s career certificate is a good example where the skills required for each role are mapped to the training courses provided.
Developing a robust and accurate competency map of the individual. A comprehensive record of the individual’s competencies would improve the efficiency of HR staffing processes to identify suitable candidates for each role that the firm requires.
Scaling up competency records to a national level. A national competency registry would help reduce verification costs of hiring organisations. The record also provides the national agencies a snapshot of the nation’s strengths and identify critical competency gaps that the nation would need to build in the next bound.
Validation of Soft Skills: Competencies in soft skills should be validated beyond the superiors
A systematic approach to evaluating soft skills such as interpersonal skills, stakeholder management skills, and problem solving skills could be achieved through 360-degree feedback system within the firm. This would allow the firm to contextualise the key traits that they would want to imbue in their staff while fulfilling their respective roles.
This approach would remove instances of toxic behaviour where an individual “manages upwards” while creating a hostile environment for peers and subordinates. It’s critical that organisations have the assurance that a potential manager is being supported by subordinates, peers, and superiors so as to be able to fulfil his/her role effectively while building up a positive organisational culture.
The individual’s competencies at their new roles could be reviewed at different junctures of their tenure to solicit feedback as part of the organisation’s people development strategy. A staff who is subsequently deemed to be unable to perform in the new role can be redeployed to a more suitable role and maximise their contributions to the organisation.
Evaluating Effectiveness of Competency-Based Staffing Model
Data forms the supporting structure of the three tenants of the Competency-Based Staffing Model. Sufficient data must be collected to determine that skills mapped to the respective roles are measured against staff performance to ensure the model’s relevance and accuracy. This ensures that the organisation staffs the people of the right skillsets to perform their roles.
Conclusion
The Competency-Based Staffing Model allows organisations to increase its organizational effectiveness through improving its human capital. An open organisational culture where everyone contributes to its people development process would benefit both the organisation and its staff at a level that would be unattainable with the Seniority-Based Staffing Model.
The shift from a Seniority-Based to a Competency-Based Staffing Model would be tedious in its initial stages and face resistance from those whom benefited from the former. However, with the right catalyst and implementation, the Competency-Based Staffing Model would improve organisational culture and performance in a way that’s relevant to the new generation of employees.
In subsequent articles, I will do a deep dive into the implementation methods of some of the concepts to ensure success in a firm’s learning and organisational transformation journey.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policies and views of any associations that the author is affiliated with.
About the Author:
Zu Hui is currently the Associate Director (HR Transformation) of Singtel, Asia’s leading communications company. He is responsible for driving Singtel’s people agenda with different stakeholders to make Singtel an employer of choice.
Prior to joining Singtel, Zu Hui spent 17 years in the Singapore Army and last performed the role of Head of Training Development where he served as the in-house learning and organisational development consultant.
He specialises in performance improvement of organisations through learning and organisational development initiatives using design thinking, agile, learning design methods, and the adoption of digital technologies.
His other interests include:
1. Understanding how businesses work
2. Understanding how financial systems work
3. Equestrian activities
4. How mechanical watches tick
He enjoys discussing topics related to human performance improvement, process improvement, learning development, organisational transformation, and advancing social good.
Connect with Zu Hui on LinkedIn
