Competency Mapping

Employees are always considered to be an organization's indispensable assets. Competency mapping is a

technique that is used by the human resource team in order to determine the qualities of an employee that can
be put to use, for the betterment of the employee's career as well as the company's projection. 

The term competency is quite generic and related to human behavior and psychology. Competency is
often defined as a quality of being adequately qualified, intellectually able and emotionally stable. The
concept of competency is basically used to define a capability of being able. Competency mapping is
a psychological test that helps the human resource management department to test the competence or
competency of an employee or a potential employee. It must be noted that competency is measured
in the employee's quality(es) and not quantity (measurement of performance). For instance, while
mapping a person's competency the question 'when and where' comes into the picture and not 'how
much'. Thus, an employee's ability to perform in a particular field is measured instead of measuring,
'how much will he perform'. Most of the companies use simple multiple choice question test to
examine a person's competency. 

Arya Chanakya, a well known royal adviser and prime minister from Vedic India, penned a famous
book known as the Arthashastra, which is probably the first book on competency mapping. The book
contains competency mapping models, the thesis and theories of human aptitude, intelligence
quotient, emotional quotient and in general everything that is related to human behavior regarding
work, logic and emotions. This book is an excellent leadership and management book and is more than
3000 years old.

What is Competency Mapping

Competency mapping is a process with the help of which the employer, or the human resource team
decides, that where would a particular person work best, as per his aptitude and temperament. There
are several different factors that are considered during a competency mapping process. There are
also some simple processes that have been made by experts in the field of clinical psychology. Some
important characteristics of a person's competency have been elaborated below.

 Constitution: Every person's personality is based upon a definite constitution. Some aspects
about work such as a person's ability to work as a team member or a team leader or even his
temperament to work individually are affected by this constitution.
 Traits: Traits can be physical and also behavioral. The traits are usually related to the
constitution. Knowing the traits of a person is absolutely important as the management's
behavior with every person differs.
 Self Concept: Every person has an interpretation about himself and some self ideals. The
management bears in mind these simple ideals, even during day-to-day work, due to the fact
that, when these ideals are respected the employee tends to remain happy and productive.
 Skill and Knowledge: Every employee has different skills and knowledge. Competency
mapping helps the company to know more about the person's skills and knowledge. It must
be noted that even a simple virtue of being patient is treated as a skill by the recruiters.

Several companies have started using competency mapping tools in order to know more about their
prospective employees or even current employees. On an average, a competency mapping test on an
employee would depict skills and knowledge of the person, his ability to work with other people, his
constitution, his dedication and finally his willingness to work.

A competency mapping presentation depicts every aspect of a person's personality. The total process
of competency management ultimately helps the company in better personnel management and
good workplace communication. Competency management is thus often considered to be an
indispensable management tool.