Capabilities

It’s not only what you do, it is how you do it

Capabilities are simple yet very powerful, helping to embed ways of working, uplifting skills and effecting change.  If you haven’t heard of them or are more familiar with the term “competencies” then you are not alone.  Simply, they are a mix of knowledge, skills and behaviours.

Competencies were developed as a tool to measure observable activities, most often used for job evaluation purposes.  In our view, they tend to look at what someone HAS done, rather than at what someone could do or aspire to do.  We think capabilities are more future focused and enable employees to use them for career development, learning or self-assessment.  They are observable, measurable and easy to use by anyone in the organisation, not simply being a tool for HR or managers.

We create capability frameworks that underpin the values and culture of an organisation, plus clearly defining the activities required at all levels to carry out specific jobs.  The framework itself is not the exciting bit, it is what you do with it that makes the biggest difference to your organisation and its people.

We use capabilities at the centre of many HR related functions.  You attach capabilities at the job level (or job family if that’s how you are structured) as a first step.  This enables employees to see exactly what they should be doing, be able to assess themselves and for managers to assess them in 180s or 360s.

Beyond that, capabilities can be linked to learning, support recruitment and selection and also play a part in performance management.

They really are very clever.  Imagine your organisation having a common language of how things are done, used by employees and the business alike, linked to everything in the employee lifecycle.

What specifically can they help with?

Retention:  if employees cannot easily see how they can advance their career in an organisation, they will look elsewhere.  Capabilities allow employees to see the differences between roles, the learning required to support development and, importantly for some organisations, that career progression is transparent.

Uplifting skills:  Capabilities are future focused and linked directly to the strategy and operating model.  When created, we ensure that they capture the things you need people to do and omit the things you wish they weren’t.

Recruitment:  Competency based interview packs built around the capabilities required for the role.  Consistent interviewing, getting to the heart of what an applicant needs to be able to know or do, and ensuring that their behaviour fits with your corporate culture.

Employee Satisfaction:  More often than not, employee dissatisfaction comes from a perceived lack of career opportunity, lack of development and a lack of clarity about their role.  Capabilities will help in all these areas and also strengthen the relationship between manager and subordinate because they can talk about tangible areas for development or current strengths.

We also provide systems to bring capabilities to life, whether this is one of our own tools or by incorporating into large HR systems, such as SAP’s SuccessFactors (in which we have lots of experience).

There are lots more that we can tell you about, but if you have difficulty in keeping people, employees who are unhappy with their progression or even trying to effect better ways of working, then you should ask us.  It is the one area of our work where clients are amazed at how they can transform and strengthen their organisation.