Keywords
Citation
(1999), "The Competencies Handbook", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 23 No. 9. https://doi.org/10.1108/jeit.1999.00323iae.002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited
The Competencies Handbook
Steve Whiddett and Sarah HollyfordeInstitute of Personnel and Development (IPD)1999ISBN 0 85292 735 5£18.95 (paperback) (£17.06 to IPD members)
Keywords: Competences, Managers, Human resources
The IPD’s The Competencies Handbook focuses on the practical design and use of compentencies in all aspects of HR management. It moves on from the theory of competencies and explains how they can be used to help managers find staff, review performance, organize training and development, and determine pay and grading.
Co-written by an occupational psychologist, Steve Whiddett, and a human resources manager, Sarah Hollyforde, it addresses both the concept and application of competencies and demystifies them in jargon-free language.
The handbook describes a competency framework as “in some ways similar to the foundations that underpin a house … get it right, and future activity can concentrate on general housekeeping. Get it wrong, and future activity will be papering over cracks and shoring up structural problems”.
Whiddett and Hollyforde say: “Competencies, often misunderstood, differ from competence in that they are concerned with the behaviour needed to fulfil a task, rather than the outcome. They consider motives, traits, skills and knowledge. A properly produced framework can be used as a common language across all departments and levels”.
Translating this theory into practice, they include a detailed sample competency framework to guide HR managers throughout the process. The book covers the 12 general stages from beginning to launch, through planning and gathering and analysing data.
The authors predict that the next phase in the development of competencies will be a consolidation of the work many organizations have done to date, building in technical competencies and linking this work to other people-related issues, such as culture change, values, strategy and organizational structures.