Hello everyone, in the previous topic we will learn about what competency is and what is competency-based job analysis, we also know how to use the rubrics scale for detailing out the various proficiency levels of competency, and we also look at the key elements of competency-based job analysis, competency mapping, and its applications.

Now, today in this topic we will look at some tips and tricks to write behavior indicators and we also look at some examples of it as well, and then we go through the methods of collecting information about the job.

Tips and Tricks to Write Behavior Indicators

In this topic, we will look at the tips and tricks for framing sentences about behavior indicators in competency-based job analysis. So we can write something like this “In order to perform this job the employee should be able to” and then write about the various behavior indicators.

For example–

Competency Name: Assertive Behavior Description: The way of person acts to stand up for self without undue anxiety or exercises personal right without denying the rights of others. In order to perform this job, the employee should: ● Be approachable and friendly, yet able to say ‘No’ when the situation calls for it. ● Be able to follow a collaborative or teamwork style with appropriate give and take in interpersonal relationships. ● Not allow someone to railroad them into taking on an extra assignment or serving on another committee when there is no way they can do justice to that because of time constraints.

In the above behavior indicators, the competency name is assertive behavior, and Its description will be Assertive behavior means the way of person acts to stand up for self without undue anxiety or exercises personal right without denying the rights of others.

And the behavior indicators can be written like this- in order to perform this job, the employee should:-

1. Be approachable and friendly, yet able to say ‘No’ when the situation calls for it.
2. Be able to follow a collaborative or teamwork style with appropriate give and take in interpersonal relationships.
3. Not allow someone to railroad them into taking on an extra assignment or serving on another committee when there is no way they can do justice to that because of time constraints.

Now, look at example no. 2:-

Competency Name: Team Leadership Description: To lead a team or function to get the best out of people to build and integrate all aspects of the performance cycle. In order to perform this job, the employee should be able to: ● Build a personal vision for change that goes beyond immediate goals or requirements laid down by the organization. ● Communicate a vision that generates excitement and enthusiasm amongst others. ● Take a number of actions to achieve team members’ commitment to the aims and objectives of the team and to the Organization’s Strategic Plan.

In the above behavior indicators, the competency name is team leadership, and its description will be to lead a team or function to get the best out of people to build and integrate all aspects of the performance cycle.

And the behavior indicators can be written like this- In order to perform this job, the employee should:-

1. Build a personal vision for change that goes beyond immediate goals or requirements laid down by the organization.
2. Communicate a vision that generates excitement and enthusiasm amongst others.
3. Take a number of actions to achieve team members’ commitment to the aims and objectives of the team and to the Organization’s Strategic Plan.

Now, look at example no. 3:-

Competency Name: Customer Focus Description: Understand and provide helpful, responsive, and knowledgeable service to customers. In order to perform this job, the employee should be able to: ● Attentive to customer’s needs, even during busy periods. ● Continually improves relationships with customers by focusing individualized attention. ● Takes ownership of customer issues, and actively seeks ways to improve customer service.

In the above behavior indicators, the competency name is customer focus and its description will be to understand and provide helpful, responsive, and knowledgeable service to customers.

And the behavior indicators can be written like this- In order to perform this job, the employee should:-

1. Attentive to customers’ needs, even during busy periods.
2. Continually improves relationships with customers by focusing individualized attention.
3. Takes ownership of customer issues, and actively seeks ways to improve customer service.

Now, look at example no. 4:-

Competency Name: Conflict Management Skill Description: Ability to manage any conflict by developing effective solutions when disputes or disagreements occur; helping others resolve conflicts when needed. In order to perform this job, the employee should be able to: ● Proactively identifies and manages potential conflicts within relationships to prevent disagreements from arising. ● Proactively works to resolve conflict among team members by showing respect for others’ opinions and working toward mutually agreeable solutions. ● Demonstrates a keen ability to distinguish between critical and non-critical conflicts; avoids unnecessary or unproductive confrontations.

In the above behavior indicators, the competency name is a conflict management skill and its description will be the ability to manage any conflict by developing effective solutions when disputes or disagreements occur; helping others resolve
conflicts when needed.

And the behavior indicators can be written like this- In order to perform this job, the employee should:-

1. Proactively identifies and manages potential conflicts within relationships to prevent disagreements from arising.
2. Proactively works to resolve conflict among team members by showing respect for others’ opinions and working toward mutually agreeable solutions.
3. Demonstrates a keen ability to distinguish between critical and non-critical conflicts; avoids unnecessary or unproductive confrontations.

Now, look at example no. 5:-

Competency Name: Decision Making Description: Ability to exercise good judgment by making effective and timely decisions. In order to perform this job, the employee should be able to: ● Independently analyzes issues and problems and expresses his/her opinion to others. ● Uses established methods to solve common problems and investigates the underlying cause to eliminate them. ● Tries different approaches when initial efforts to solve problems fail; anticipates possible problems and develops alternatives.

In the above behavior indicators, the competency name is decision-making skills and its description will be the ability to exercise good judgment by making effective and timely decisions.

And the behavior indicators can be written like this- In order to perform this job, the employee should:-

1. Independently analyzes issues and problems and expresses his/her opinion to others.
2. Uses established methods to solve common problems and investigates the underlying cause to eliminate them.
3. Tries different approaches when initial efforts to solve problems fail; anticipates possible problems and develops alternatives.

Now we will look at the method of collecting information about the job.

Methods of Collecting Information

To understand the key competencies first you need to collect information about the jobs right. Now how can you collect this information? So now we will see what are the common methods of collecting information about the job.

The common methods of collecting information about the job are as follow-

• Observation
• Interview
• Questionnaires
• Examining Manuals or Reference Materials
• Technical Conference Method

Observation

The first method is observation, In this method, the HR for the concerned person carefully observes and documents what the job holder does. Observation is a more practical method to use when the candidate you are observing is involved with more physical activities in his or her job. Then for a candidate whose job has more to do with cognitive tasks such as those done by lawyers, scientists e.t.c.

In this case, it is difficult to understand their task just by observing them. Let’s take two examples to understand how observation can be used to gather information about the job.

First, let’s take an example of a Receptionist. Now if we start observing the receptionist we might notice these pointers:-

1. How is she greeting the customers?
2. How she takes care of bookings or checking in of rooms?
3. How does she take printouts for the bookings?
4. How does she explain interesting membership programs or additional facilities?
5. How she takes care of customers’ grievances?

Hence, we can deduce from these observations that:

• She should have a pleasing personality.
• She must be aware of at least the basic functionalities while booking or checking rooms.
• She must know how to operate the printers and do basic troubleshooting.
• She must be good in convincing skills for converting customers to take up membership programs.
• She must have analytical skills for grievance handling.

Do you see how observation of a job holder helps the HR or the job analyst collect information about the job. But this observation was a useful method for gathering data about the job of a receptionist in a job role that is comparatively easy to understand.

Imagine if you have to do this for the job of a lawyer. Here it will become difficult to observe the lawyer in a similar manner. Since we may not have much knowledge about the domain and also because it involves higher order of cognitive activities which are difficult to observe.

A few other jobs in which observation may be difficult can be those of a doctor, mobile app developer e.t.c. so observation can be chosen as a method only for those jobs that show significant or observable behavior or actions.

Interview

The next method we will look at is the interview. In this, the Job Analyst or HR interviews the job holder and his or her supervisor to gather information about the job. This involves a two-way conversation between the analyst and the person giving the interview, and hence, this gives more clarity than the previous method of observation.

Let’s understand this with the help of an example–

So let’s say the job is a graphic designer. Here you may ask the manager to give more details about the same. Some of the questions asked can be:-

1. What exactly are the major duties of this position?
2. What tools or software are much to know and which ones are good to know?
3. How many projects must the candidates have worked on?
4. What is the minimum experience required?
5. What challenges might be faced in the job such as working on tight deadlines e.t.c?
6. What are some other non-technical expectations from the role? Such as on and off interaction with the clients, traveling sometimes, or teamwork e.t.c.

Do you observe something here? All questions are based on the job description and job specification that be written. So you try to get such information at this stage that can be framed to write a JD in the next job analysis stage. You can frame such questions for any profile and get the required information.

Questionnaires

The third method is questionnaires. In this, the senior members of the same department fill in the given questionnaire. This method of collecting job-related data is desirable, especially in two situations-

1. The first is if conducting personal interviews is a time taking process.
2. The second is because giving a questionnaire gives the job holder enough time to think and analyze in depth the various aspects of his or her job. This is very similar to the interview method just that here you are giving the person to answer the questions enough time to think of the answers and even find out answers if need be.

The questions in this method can be the same as that in the interview method.

Examining Manuals or Reference Materials

The fourth method of collecting information is by examining manuals or reference materials. In analyzing jobs, the job analyst goes through the records and notes down the relevant aspects of job details.

He/She may use quality manuals, timelines, human resource manuals, procedures, instructions, forms, feedback, e.t.c. to get details about the job.

Basically, these are all different kinds of reference materials that are used for collecting information about the job.

For example- if you want to hire a recruiter whose job will be to recruit more talent for your organization, and you want to collect more information about how many calls this recruiter has to make to the candidate. To find this data you can check the records of existing recruiters in your company, and see how many calls they make on an everyday basis or weekly basis to get the idea.

Technical Conference Method

In this method supervisors, experts, and subject matter experts do discussions and give expert advice and views regarding the job.

Let’s say Kumar Shanu Sinha is an HR of a firm and he needs to recruit 8 new machine operators. For this, he needs to do a job analysis for the role, but he neither has the time nor does he have the knowledge of the job to be able to observe an interview or sent questionnaires.

So in order to get information about the job Shanu calls a meeting with the seniors of the same department. He asked them for expert input for the job role, duties, working conditions, hazards, and skills required by the machine operators, and he uses all this new information for job analysis.

So by using this method, Shanu is able to quickly complete the task. He can take advice from people outside his company if they have knowledge of a similar domain. One thing we must take care of when using any of these methods is the opinion you are gathering should come from the right set of people.

Else, the quality of your job analysis will be impacted. Such that you may end up getting incorrect information. Hence, choose the people you are gathering the information from wisely. Also, it is not necessary that only one method is used, but a job analyst is mostly used as a combination of these methods to gather the details about the job.

With this, today we will look at some tips and tricks to write behavior indicators with a couple of examples and methods of collecting information about the job.

So, that is all for today guys see you in our next blog. If you like our article please don’t forget to share it with others & follow our Instagram page for your daily dose of Motivation, and if you want jobs & internships updates or more articles like this you can follow our Linkedin page too.

Thank You,

Regards

Grooming Urban

Also Read What is competency-based job analysis, its key elements, competency mapping, and its applications What is Human Resource Management (HRM) The Functions of HRM, SCAMPER Technique, & Challenges in the Role of HR Manpower Planning What are Job Analysis, Job Description, and Job Specification? What is competency, the KSA model of competency mapping, and the different types of competencies

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