The curious case of traits vs competencies

Many organisations today are turning to behavioural science research to improve their hiring practices and assess top talent, with a deep interest in trait-based evaluations.

The war of talent is raging and going to stay. The Great Resignation, Great Hiring and Quiet Quitting are indicators that organisations need to and continue to put considerable stakes in their talent management programmes. Identifying and placing the right talent in critical roles are certain differentiators of robust talent management systems. At the same time, talent prerogatives have also shifted rapidly over the last few years Organisations have to understand what defines and drives today’s talent and face the fact that these can change over time based on their experiences and the external marketplace conditions Given this complexity, how can an organisation identify highpotential talent correctly? This article attempts to address the ongoing debate on competencies vs traits as the more appropriate talent yardstick today’s organisations can benefit from

History of assessments

Historically, talent assessment methodologies focused on work-oriented skills and moved towards aptitude and personality evaluations over time. As such, behaviours are now viewed as the most important aspect of understanding what drives us, our actions and ultimately our accomplishments/ failures. In the 1980s and thereafter, the PersonSituation debate got widely researched and studied by Seymour Epstein to determine whether human behaviour was intrinsic to a person or was driven by specific situations. The person-situation debate has evolved many times now because both sides of the debate have turned out to be right. With respect to momentary behaviours, the situation side is right: the typical individual’s behaviour can be highly variable But when it comes to predicting behavioural trends (e g , a person’s typical way of acting), the person side of the debate is right: intrinsic personality & traits predict and describe behaviour very well over long periods, and a trait approach can be used to differentiate between people Many organisations today are turning to behavioural science research to improve their hiring practices and assess

Read more at: https://www.peoplematters.in/article/skills-assessments/traits-vscompetencies-which-is-more-important-36863