TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

Identify specific skills that your employees need.
Implement them seamlessly into your organization.

Create Your Own Technical Competencies Dictionary Tailored to Your Organization

Include in Workitect’s Competency Dictionary

In Workitect’s model-building methodology, technical competencies are determined through interviews, expert panels, and other methods as described in “Add Technical Competencies to Your Competency Dictionary”, and as taught in our Building Competency Models and Creating Technical Competencies certification workshops. The purchase of a separate technical competency dictionary is not required.

When it is determined that superior performers in a position require a high level of technical expertise in a specific field, the technical competency (or competencies) can be included in a competency model as described in “How to Include Technical Competencies in Job Competency Models”.

Improve Organizational Performance with Technical Competencies

Technical Competencies ensure that departments develop the skills needed to implement the organization’s strategy and plans. Some of the reasons for identifying your technical competencies are:

To develop a training and professional development curriculum to efficiently develop a technically skilled staff
To be able to recognize and reward professional development among technically skilled individual contributors
To enable HR staff to develop applications in professional development, developing career paths, and succession planning

What Are Technical Competencies?

Technical competencies describe the skills a person “must be able to do” to effectively perform in a specific job, role or function. Technical competencies describe distinct “units of work” performed by an individual. Technical competencies require the application of skills, knowledge and abilities. Technical competencies can be identified for specific jobs within one organization or across branches of an organization. Technical competencies are also developed at the industry or professional level to set performance standards for national certification and training programs.

Ready to add technical competencies customized to your organization?

Request more information or talk with a Workitect consultant about how our services, tools, and training can help you identify, describe, and apply technical competencies integrated with non-technical competencies.

Six Steps to Including Technical Competencies

Include Technical Competencies in Your Competency Library or Dictionary

Many organizations want to include technical competencies, skills, knowledge, in competency models and human resource applications. Off-the-shelf competency libraries and dictionaries for very specific technical specialties are available. Most are comprehensive, complex, and expensive.

In addition, the competencies are so job-specific that there may be no competency dictionaries or libraries that accurately describes all of the technical competencies used in an industry or organization. An alternative to using an off-the-shelf dictionary is to develop a custom dictionary, identifying the technical competencies using proven data collection and analysis techniques. Read More >

LEARN MORE ABOUT TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

• Guided Launch of a Competency Modeling Project that Includes Technical Competencies

• Understanding General and Technical Competencies

• Managing Role-Specific Technical Competencies

• Developing Technical Competencies

Standard Levels for Technical Competencies

Level	Definition
Basic Proficiency	Has completed a basic training course, if one is available. Has begun to apply skill/knowledge.
Intermediate Proficiency	Has developed some breadth or depth of knowledge and skills, but has not mastered all areas needed for full proficiency. Has significant experience and practice applying knowledge and skills across many relevant areas.
Full Proficiency	Fluently applies the skills and knowledge in all applicable tasks performed in his/her organization. Has extensive experience and practice applying this skill area across all relevant areas. Has provided technical leadership of the full range of applicable tasks performed in his/her organization.
Expert	Has developed training materials and had extensive experience teaching this skill/knowledge area to others. Has cutting-edge knowledge of state-of-the-art application of this skill/knowledge area outside of the organization. Has developed new tools or technology for this area.

Competency-Based HR Applications

Competency-based HR applications have been created for performance management, assessment and selection, succession planning/management, training and development, and workforce management (re-engineering, upskilling, downsizing, and mergers).

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Implement a Competency-Based HR System

Successful implementation of a competency-based HR system requires analysis and planning, model-building, developing applications, and implementation, using Workitect’s proven competency assessment methodology. Read more (PDF)

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Practical Questions To Answer before Building Competency Models

When planning the development of a competency framework, competency model or models, there are practical considerations that affect the design of the project, the format and content of the competency model, and the success of the project’s implementation. The following seven questions may be useful to professionals responsible for planning and implementing:

What HR application should be included in the initial competency model building project?
What will the key users of the job competency model need from it?
How should key stakeholders be involved?
How extensive should the data collection be?
How should research be balanced with intuitive approaches?
What format of behavioral descriptors will best suit the HR application?
How can additional, future competency models be accommodated?

Superior Performers Produce Superior Results

An effective system requires a clear understanding of the core competencies required for success in roles, and an accurate assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of employees.

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