Preserving CCI Experience and Expertise through the Development of Competency Profiles

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CCI Newsletter, No. 36, Fall 2005

Preserving CCI Experience and Expertise through the Development of Competency Profiles

by Lise Perron-Croteau, Director, Business Planning and Administration, CCI; and David Grattan, Manager, Conservation Research, CCI

Like many heritage organizations established in the 1970s, CCI is facing an important demographic challenge over the next 5-10 years. With a workforce that has remained relatively stable over the last 30 years, CCI is becoming increasingly concerned that the experience, expertise, and knowledge developed during this time is at risk of being lost through imminent retirements. Indeed, 73% of CCI's current workforce is more than 45 years old; 12% could retire immediately; and 33% will be eligible for retirement within the next 5 years. It is imperative that the collective wisdom of these individuals be passed on to others.

As part of the Human Resources Strategy to address this issue, CCI has recently developed competency profiles for all positions. These are now a key component of CCI recruitment and staffing, learning and career development, performance management, and succession planning practices.

But what are competencies?

Competencies are a way of characterizing the knowledge, skill, ability, and behaviour that an employee applies in performing his/her work. As such, they can often be the key factors that allow an organization to carry out its mandate and business strategies. Competencies can be applied to numerous aspects of performance, and are increasingly used by many different organizations to define the most productive behaviours.

Competencies can be roughly divided into two types: functional competencies, which define the specific skills and knowledge that people need to do their jobs; and behavioural competencies, which describe how people do their jobs, i.e. how they think, feel, and act on the job. Behavioural competencies complement functional competencies in that they describe how people with the appropriate skills and knowledge should behave with respect to their jobs, their clients, and their colleagues. Because behaviour in the workplace is so critical in a values-based organization such as CCI, our behavioural competencies were designed specifically to integrate the Institute's values of excellence, expertise, honesty, integrity, respect, responsibility, and accountability.

It is often said — half jokingly — that employees are hired because of their ability and knowledge but fired because of their behaviour. Bad or ineffectual behaviour in the workplace is often difficult to address, and consequently it is important to recruit staff that have an understanding and commitment to the values of the organization. Because they describe how people behave on the job, behavioural competencies can be designed to capture an organization's values. However, not every aspect of behaviour can be addressed by the competencies. In practice, most organizations restrict usage to no more than 8-10 that are key to organizational success. By limiting the number of competencies, it is also easier to use them consistently in human resources management practices.

CCI has developed behavioural competency profiles for three job families (management, conservation professionals, and corporate and client services staff) as well as functional competencies for conservation professionals. In all cases the profiles were developed by teams that consisted of a representative group of staff led by a consultant who specialized in the process.¹ The competency profiles developed by these teams were then validated through staff focus groups before being finalized.

The development phase of the competency profiles spanned several years, and their actual use at CCI is still quite recent. Initial experience in their application when hiring new staff has shown their value in discriminating clearly between candidates in terms of behavioural traits. Generally speaking, they have also been welcomed by current staff because of the extra clarity they bring to discussions about performance. Members of staff now have a better idea of what is expected, and what competencies or skills they need to develop in order to reach more senior or management positions.

CCI is optimistic that the competency profiles developed in this project will help to ensure that the Institute continues to be an effective conservation organization.

For more information or copies of CCI's competency profiles, please contact CCI Client Services.

Each of these individual competencies was then further defined, and indicators provided for entry, working, and senior levels. The table below illustrates the detailed definition of the "Technical knowledge" competency for conservators:

Behavioural competencies

Behavioural competencies describe how people do their jobs, and are often defined to capture an organization's values. At CCI, the following behavioural competencies were identified as being essential for every employee:

• Client focus
• Communication
• Initiative
• Results orientation
• Teamwork

Competencies that were considered specific to conservation professionals included:

• Critical and conceptual thinking
• Heritage community awareness
• Innovation
• Networking

As with the functional competencies, each of these was further defined and indicators provided for entry, working, and senior levels. The table below illustrates the detailed definition of the "Heritage community awareness" competency for conservation professionals:

1. CCI benefited considerably from the experience of others — most notably the National Research Council of Canada, which made the details of their competencies available to us — during the development process. We owe them our gratitude.