Competencies, Proficiency Levels and Indicators
Examples of competencies exhibited in the work context might be 'communication skills', 'erecting and dismantling scaffolding' or 'typing'. On their own though, these competencies do not give you the full picture. For example, a person may be able to demonstrate the competence erecting and dismantling scaffolding, but that does not tell you how proficient a person is in that competence. For example, do they erect and dismantle scaffolding as a beginner, or as an expert? Other areas of ambiguity might include exactly what behavior is being measured. For example, the competence communication skills might mean that a person has technical, oral and written skills, or that they have the ability to communicate well.
Because of the flexibility of Oracle Human Resources, you are able to structure your competencies to design your methods of measurement to meet the needs of your enterprise. If most of the competencies within your enterprise are comprised of proficiency levels unique to individual competencies, you might want to create competencies with their unique proficiency levels. You would therefore have a number of equivalent systems for measuring performance. Alternatively, you can use the general method of measurement. Here, you do not hold the proficiency level at the competence level, but you use a general rating scale and text to describe the competence in a general way. You can, of course, use a mixture of both.
Proficiency
To enable you to fully express how a competence is exhibited in the work context, Oracle Human Resources enables you to identify the proficiency at which a competence is performed, and the associated behavioral characteristics displayed (known as behavioral indicators). You can use behavioral indicators for any description that tells you or other managers what to look for in the work context. The text description can include what tests to use, what behaviors to detect, what questions to ask (for example, in a critical incident interview), when to review, and so on.
Figure 1 - 24 illustrates the descriptions, proficiency level and behavioral indicators for the competence Communication Skills.
See Also
Structuring Your Competencies
