The framework of workforce competencies enables the organization to better exploit the capabilities of its workforce. There are at least three ways in which this framework can be exploited. First, when competent people perform their assignments using proven competencybased processes, management trusts the results they produce. This trust enables the organization to preserve the results of performing competency-based processes and develop them as organizational assets to be reused by others. In essence, people trust the asset because they trust the methods through which it was produced. When these assets are created and used effectively, learning spreads more rapidly through the organization and productivity rises when reuse replaces redevelopment.
Second, this trust also gives managers the confidence they need to empower workgroups. Managers will transfer responsibility and authority for committed work into workgroups only if they believe the members of the workgroup are competent to perform the work and use processes that have been proven effective. When the organization achieves Maturity Level 3, the conditions required for empowerment.competent people, effective processes, and a participatory environment.are established. In achieving Maturity Level 4, management senses less risk in empowering workgroups and is willing to delegate increasingly greater levels of authority for managing day-to-day operations and for performing some of their own workforce practices. Increasingly free of managing operational details, managers at Maturity Level 4 are able to turn their attention to more strategic issues.
Third, when members of each workforce competency community have mastered their competency-based processes, the organization is able to integrate different competency-based processes into a single multidisciplinary process. At Maturity Level 3, individuals performing different competency based processes manage their mutual dependencies by defining points of coordination. However, their competency-based work is performed largely in isolation of each other’s competency-based processes. However, when competency-based processes have been institutionalized, the organization can begin integrating different competency-based processes into a multidisciplinary process that better integrates the work of several workforce competencies. An example would be the integration of software and hardware design processes into a single product design process where the different competency-based processes are interwoven at every point where they share a potential dependency. Such multidisciplinary processes have proven to accelerate business results.
In addition to exploiting the possibilities enabled by the competency framework, the organization begins to manage its capability quantitatively. Within each unit or workgroup, the performance of competency-based processes most critical for accomplishing business objectives is measured. These measures are used to establish process performance baselines that can be used for managing competency-based processes and assessing the need for corrective action. The creation and use of these baselines and associated measures is similar to methods underlying Six Sigma programs. Although Six Sigma techniques can be used at any level of maturity, the full sophistication of a Six Sigma approach is best enabled at Maturity Level 4. Members of a competency community have immediate data for evaluating their performance and deciding on the need for corrective actions. The immediate availability of process performance data also contributes to the rationale for empowering workgroups to manage their business activities. The organization uses the data generated by competency-based processes to establish process capability baselines for its critical competency-based processes. These baselines can be used for planning, for targeting improvements, and for predicting the organization’s capacity for work. The organization evaluates the impact of workforce practices and activities on the capability of competency-based processes and takes corrective action when necessary. process capability baselines and associated analyses are used as inputs for workforce planning.
The combined availability of workforce capability baselines and process capability baselines for competency-based processes enables both unit and organizational performance to become more predictable. These data allow management to make more accurate predictions about future performance and better decisions about tradeoffs involving workforce capability or process performance issues. The quantitative management capabilities implemented at Maturity Level 4 provide management with better input for strategic decisions, while encouraging delegation of operational details to those at lower organizational levels.