Work Levels
The Basis for Identifying Capability and Potential
Work Levels The Basis for Identifying Capability and Potential Overview Talent Management is about ensuring that the supply of human resources meets the strategic demands of the business. It is an 'emerging science’ that makes the link between jobs and people now and in the future. Whilst the subject has much to offer, practitioners are often mired in confusion as to meaning of important terms such as capability and potential. Work Levels clarifies the meaning of talent-related terms and provides the ‘ruler’ against which capability and potential can be measured. Introduction Talent Management ensures that the supply of people with the requisite skills and experience meets demand now and in the future. A vital part of assessing supply and making plans based on this concerns taking stock. Undertaking a human stock-take is a good management practice but there is a big difference between making an inventory of people and such items as perishable good. People have hidden potential and can grow and develop. An inventory that fails to quantify this asset is likely to undervalue its resources and lead to unnecessary hiring and waste. Despite a good deal of theory and management time having been devoted to identifying potential, there is still considerable confusion as to what is meant by this term. The purpose of this paper is to introduce ideas and concepts, based on a body of knowledge known as Work Levels, that allow talent managers, HR professionals and line managers to distinguish between
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capability, performance and potential. Definitions Capability Simply put, capability describes the demonstrated ability of someone to actually do a particular job.
The Jigsaw of capability
Capability comprises all the elements of the jigsaw above.
Work Levels
The Basis for Identifying Capability and Potential
Capability therefore is the successful application of all the necessary skills, knowledge, experience etc. that are required to make good judgements in real work situations. It is recognised that the quality of the thinking skills are central to this; without the right mental flexibility and appropriate breadth/depth of perspective, other pieces in the jigsaw are insufficient in themselves. This central piece of the jigsaw distinguishes us from the mightiest of computers and enables us to make judgements despite not having all of the necessary information on which to calculate the exact answer. ‘While knowledge is one of the essential tools of work, it is not the work itself.....knowledge alone will not see you through.....in work you are confronted by problems that have no absolutely correct answer. You have to use knowledge and judgement in interaction’ (Jaques 1990). Performance Performance is about producing outputs. Current performance depends on having the necessary component of the jigsaw but it is not the same thing as potential. Whilst being a high producer qualifies people to be considered as ‘high potential’, being the best producer is not necessarily a good indicator of a readiness to move to a more complex level of work. When effective performance in a current role is used as the only criterion for promotion it can lead to people being overextended. This phenomenon of overpromotion is aptly described in The Peter Principle that refers to people being promoted until ‘they reach their level of incompetence’. A fundamental requirement for managers in all organisations is to distinguish between current performance and potential.
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Potential The central piece in the capability jigsaw, i.e. the thinking skills, is also vital when identifying and assessing potential. There are two aspects related to potential. There is current potential and there is long-term potential. Long-term potential defines the highest level of work challenge that a person is likely to comfortably undertake in the fullness of their career. Despite the interest having been focused on long-term potential, current potential is much more relevant for creating an inventory. Current potential is the raw quality that someone possesses now that enables them to theoretically handle a particular level of work challenge that they have yet to experience. Unlike performance which is measured as an output, current potential is an enabler - an input to future performance. Work Levels Work Levels acts as ‘ruler’ against which capability and potential can be measured. The essence of Work Levels is that all work can be allocated to one of a specified number of levels of work - each with its own theme, purpose and core contribution. Core contribution describes the outputs of the job and the value of these to the organisation is in direct proportion to the complexity of the environment in which decisions have to be made. Based on this, the mirror image is established which relates to the people requirements. As such, and by making the connection, a dynamic link between people and jobs is formed. At each successive level the capability to get one's head around the scale of the challenge needs to change profoundly.
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Work Levels
The Basis for Identifying Capability and Potential
Job Demand
Measuring Potential A person’s thinking skills and capability to get their head around a specific level of challenge can be Person 1 assessed without the need for complex psychometric tests.
self esteem. The negative consequences in some instances may take years to become apparent. Person 2
Person 3
Perspective/ Mental Model
Carefully selected interview Under Utilised questions reveal the breadth Matched and depth of a person’s Over stretched perspective and the robustness of their mental models. Perspective and mental models that give rise to this enable a person to make Waste Poor Decisions Optimisation -Demotivation -Stress -In-flow judgements and decisions in conditions of uncertainty when they do not know, and cannot know, Assessing current potential by referencing the exact answer. the quality of the thinking skills and then relating this to the level of job undertaken Based on the interview assessment, it is enables a gap analysis to be undertaken. possible to place a person within the Work Levels range. Once you have also assessed the level of work that is being undertaken, a measure of the extent of the match (or mismatch) can be identified. In essence, if someone is working at a particular level of work and they theoretically can get their head around the complexity of work that is undertaken at a higher level then the difference can be described as current potential. Identifying potential in this way allows questions related to personal development and training to become investment decisions. The time and cost associated converting the ‘raw’ qualities in current potential into the capability to perform through training and development can be fully considered.
On an aggregated basis this gap analysis of match/mismatch enables an organisation to build a comprehensive picture of the under utilisation of potential and the overstretch of resources. Summary Work Levels provides the basis and framework for Talent Management. Within this clear definitions for key talent related terms are provided. Using these, together with relevant diagnostic methods, organisations can: Distinguish between capability and potential and make sensible recruitment decisions based on this, Fully utilise latent talent, Build an aggregated picture of talent and ensure that this is always optimised.
The Benefits of Measurement When a person's potential to get their head around the complexity of a job is aligned to the scale of the challenge, they are likely to feel in-flow and make sensible decisions. When out of-flow there are consequences that impact the business and a person's
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