Developing People Teamwork Compensation Benefits Employment Law Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Core Competencies As a major player in the high-value specialty metals industry, Johnson Matthey of West Chester, PA, knows a competitive edge is critical to their growth and future position in the marketplace. Through the guidance of management consultant Dick Haviland, the company developed a competency approach to reduce turnover, improve job performance, make better hiring decisions and help employees learn at the speed required to stay on top of the ever-changing marketplace. The results have been amazing. Dick worked with Johnson-Matthey to integrate competency modeling into their organizational culture.
Competencies are behaviors that distinguish effective performers from ineffective ones.
Certain motives, traits, skills and abilities are attributed to people who consistently behave in specific ways. A competency model depicts those motives, traits and so forth as a set of desired behaviors for a particular job position or level. A competency model also implies that such behaviors are predictive of who is likely to be successful in a position or role. Johnson-Matthey found competency models useful for improving many aspects of their business. The new competency models helped us hire and train our people with the skills needed to attain critical performance metrics such as on-time delivery and market share.