How to Enhance Employee Acceptance of a New Competency Model

How to Enhance Acceptance of a New Model During the Early Stages of Rollout

A quick thought before proceeding: Depending on the scope or complexity of your model, the rollout can occur in phases. For example, you might implement the model in Phase 1, the interviewing component in Phase 2, and so on. Or you might use it in one department for a quarter, iron out some kinks, and then expand.

1. Emphasize the benefits.

A competency model provides guidance about how people should go about their jobs. Many people will think, “Why should I do this? I am already doing my job well.” To be fair, many don’t have evidence to the contrary unless the culture is feedback-rich (and few are). To address this, emphasize the reasons for implementing the model and its benefits.

There are several ways to approach this. One is to describe why the endeavor was pursued in the first place. If you created a competency model, someone earlier made that decision for a good reason. What was that reason? Another approach is to use the above analogy of signal and noise. All accomplished athletes have coaches for exactly that reason. No matter how well anyone (or any group) performs, there is always room for improvement. Further, it is neither cool nor profitable to be just “adequate.” A third approach is to highlight the benefits of improving at specific competencies. “If we focus more on customers, we will have greater customer retention, which can bring in X additional dollars.” “If we solve problems more efficiently, we estimate that Y dollars in costs could be avoided.” And so forth.

I’d suggest emphasizing the bottom-line benefits and doing so credibly. Too many people are wary of passing fads that come and go because they weren’t really useful to begin with.

2. Conduct helpful training.

Such training should address both why and how. We discussed “why” above. Training should explain that competencies and behaviors are guidelines rather than absolute rules, and that judgment is still needed. It should also cover the importance of customizing items to make them most useful. If behavior-based interviews or development guides are part of the rollout, dedicated training should be conducted to guide their use. I should mention my bias: Videos and documents strike me as poor imitations of real training. If there is no practice and no opportunity for discussion, execution will be compromised. Maybe there is a place for them, but competency model implementation is not that place.

3. Secure regular reinforcement from leaders.

The higher up, the better. What type of reinforcement? I’m not a fan of having some higher-up make a five-minute cameo at a kickoff meeting. This signals that they don’t care about it and are just there for show. Regular reinforcement means leaders ask about it, talk about it, and encourage its use in ongoing interactions and forums. But how do you make that happen? By getting them involved in the original design so that it addresses their goals. You want them to care, not to pretend they care. Why? People care about what their bosses care about. Managers care about, and act on, what their managers care about.

How to Enhance Acceptance of a New Model After the Rollout

1. Refresh it periodically.

A year or two after the initial rollout, some things will have changed. New executives will bring new paradigms and priorities. New customers will cause processes to evolve. Some practices will catch on and take root, while others fade away. Some processes will become more sophisticated, warranting more detailed coverage in your model.

This means adding content, but it also means editing or deleting it. If people feel that the model has become cluttered, they will stop using it. Updates can be informed by simple surveys about what is missing or has become obsolete, with follow-up deep dives as appropriate. Note also that if there are structured interview questions, development guides, performance rating scales, or other materials derived from the model, they should be updated to reflect the changes.

2. Share best practices and success stories.

This can be done through staff meetings, emails, newsletters, or other forums. There are many variations on this theme. For example, “Function X started using competency Y and accomplished Z.” Or, “John has been using Behavior X for a few months and discovered that…” This reinforces use of the model in general and highlights successes that others can replicate. The forum for doing so should be one that is accepted in the organization.

There are ways to estimate financial gains from a competency model. One way is to look at metrics already in use and see whether anything has changed since the model’s implementation. Most importantly, confirm with subject matter experts that use of the model (probably through specific behaviors or competencies) seems to have influenced those metrics. (Half of all metrics will improve just by chance.) Another way is to follow up on specific success stories where there appears to be a link to significant bottom-line results. For example, if someone describes developing an innovation, look for its financial consequences. Be rigorous, seek out expert judgments, and don’t mislead anyone.

3. Have an owner.

Refreshing the model and sharing best practices can only happen if someone is responsible for doing so. Sounds obvious? Once something has been implemented, it is tempting to check the box and move on. That gets the implementation done, but not the maintenance.

In addition to the above, the owner should follow up with users periodically to monitor and address challenges. Is more training needed, and if so, on what? Are certain competencies going unused? Are people customizing as intended, and if not, why not? Just to reiterate, the competency model was designed because of the benefits it brings, presumably to the bottom line. Maintaining the model similarly affects those benefits, positively or negatively.

Closing Thoughts

Many of the above tips apply to the rollout of almost anything, so they are probably common sense to any OD practitioner: executive sponsorship, overcommunication, and so forth. But the guidance above adapts these principles specifically to the rollout of competency models.

One takeaway from the above, consistent with other rollouts, is that success is largely determined not by the merits of the project but by the thoroughness of its implementation. How many good initiatives fail because nobody followed up? Or because training was an afterthought?

What competency modeling has going for it is that it is indeed a bottom-line endeavor, not just pretty lipstick. Whoever signed off on it in the first place recognized this. It normally shouldn’t take much legwork to articulate those bottom-line connections, whether before or after that decision or during the rollout.