From Job-Based to Competency-Based Organizations

1 Research and theory in the fields of organizational behavior and human resource management have been focused for decades by the view that jobs are the basic building blocks of complex organizations. The idea that individuals have a job which involves specific accountabilities, responsibilities, and activities is well-established and fundamental to much of the research in organizational behavior. It is also basic to many government programs and in the United States is institutionalized in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The popularity of job based approaches can be traced back to the era of scientific management when the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor did much to develop the idea that jobs can be studied, specified, and that work methods for doing them can be improved and rationalized. The evolution of the bureaucratic approach to organizing carried the idea of jobs further into an overall approach to organizing and managing large numbers of people to accomplish particular goals and objectives. It led to the rationalization and development of hierarchies, line/staff jobs, job evaluation methods, and a host of organizational approaches that rest upon the idea of individuals holding jobs. Much of the technology in the area of human resource management is grounded in the idea of individuals holding jobs. Ash, Levine, and Sistrunk, (1983) for example, argue that the job paradigm is the unifying concept in employee selection, training, performance management and compensation. Indeed, most organizations begin their approach organizing with a job description that typically specifies an individuals duties and activities. Job descriptions are then used for training, selection, career development and pay determination. These human resource management systems are all designed to assure that individuals will be motivated and capable of performing jobs. They are selected to fit jobs, trained to perform them, and rewarded based on how well they perform them. Job descriptions are also used as a basis for grouping individuals together into organizational units, and finally, as the basis for rationalizing the overall structure of the organization. Despite its historical utility, there is growing evidence that it may be time to for many organizations move away from a focus on jobs and toward a focus on individuals and 2 their competencies (Lawler and Ledford, 1992). In many situations there is good reason to believe that the concept of an individual holding a job is no longer the best way to think about organizing and managing individuals. Instead …