How do you deal with “one-off” competency models?

Someone just told me that they are about to begin competency modeling, but have a number of “one-off” roles – those with only one person in the role – and wanted to know how to handle them. This isn’t particularly unusual given that in the Future of Work, roles are changing rapidly. New roles will be created to accommodate emerging needs. So you must be able to wrap your capability modeling expertise around that reality. People in those roles need competency models too. They also want to own their development and gather skills as currency.

There are 2 approaches we recommend.

If the foundation for this role is fairly common, (e.g., an Accounts Receivable Specialist with a twist) it is easiest to start with a standard competency model.  A good standard competency model will cover the tasks well, provide you with applicable behavioral examples, and a target level of proficiency.  While you may require a different level in your organization, or even slightly altered behaviors, it’s easy to make those small modifications.  When we do this with customers, we provide the model (tasks/skills, behavioral examples, target level) to customers in a template, and the individual and their manager spend about 1-2 hours reviewing and tailoring the model.  Their completed model then gets uploaded into the competency assessment system.  The cool part about this process is that if you have a bunch of one-off roles, all the reviewing and tailoring can be done concurrently without you.  So if you have 2 one-off roles or 20 one-off roles, it takes the same number of calendar days. (Click video image to watch recorded webinar about standard models).

If this role is quite unique, then you need to determine if it’s worth building a model from scratch, using the process described in the recorded ATD webinar (here, participants include only that individual and their manager) and associated materials.

Or you may find that there are tasks they do that are in other models, and you can piece together a new model from other models.  This is a similar approach that you’d do if it were a new role and there are no high performers.  That is, you determine what a role SHOULD be doing, and see if you have those tasks (with behaviors) in your competency inventory.  Then, similar to the standard model process, the individual and their manager would pick the target level of proficiency.

And ultimately, as the one-off roles become populated with more people, and people assess against the roles yielding capability analytics, you’ll apply the suggested annual review process, to determine what model changes are required as the role and corporate strategy evolve.