HR’s Skills, Competencies and Capabilities (part 2)
Since I’ve only recently suggested some HR skills for the 2020s, I’m making this part 2 of that post, building on my thoughts at that point. The reason for returning to the topic is that Dave Ulrich has just published his new HR competencies, and I have often posted my own thoughts on previous versions, before or after these were published (eg here).
Plus I’ve been reflecting on Josh Bersin’s HR capabilities and his Academy’s Capability Network, and what my own Academy might usefully do in this area.
It might be useful to start with the links between skills, competencies and capabilities.
Skills are the basic units of what HR needs to be effective. Competencies are combinations of skills plus knowledge and behaviours.
Josh explains the differences between skills / competencies and capabilities as follows:
“As we have written about many times, there are many competency models and frameworks which try to define the skills of HR. But as we talk with hundreds of companies and study what really makes high performing companies work, we found that at its core, what HR professionals need are a set of strategic capabilities to do their jobs. We define a capability as a business-oriented set of skills, which can be described in a phrase which is easy to understand. And these capabilities, which are broader and deeper than skills, can be tested, observed, and proven in the workplace.”
These relationships are also illustrated in Josh’ diagram below:
Skills
My suggestion in my last post was that HR needs to focus on these HR skillsets:
- Digital immersion (using the technologies)
- Wisdom artistry (vs data science)
- Experience orientation (creating value together with the workforce)
Competencies
The above skills do relate, though not that closely, to my suggestions for HR competencies last time Dave updated his list:
- Digital activist
- Wisdom artist
- Idea collector and integrator
- Friend in business
- Organisation and workplace designer
- Organisation developer
- Human capital developer
- Value creator
- Best fit strategist
Dave’s actual competencies were:
- Technology and media integrator
- Analytics designer and interpretor
- Compliance manager
- Paradox navigator
- Credible activist
- Culture and change champion
- Human capital curator
- Total rewards steward
- Strategic positioner
In the new list, paradox navigator has been replaced by complexity simplifier, and fitting with this change, the framework has been simplified too:
- Mobilises information
- Simplifies complexity
- Fosters collaboration
- Advances human capability
- Accelerates business
Capabilities
AIHR’s Academy doesn’t seem to distinguish between competencies and capabilities but splits these into three core and five functional capabilities. The core ones are:
- Data-driven
- Digital fundamentals
- Business acumen
Josh’s capabilities form quite a long list, which is appropriate, given these relate closely to the different contexts HR works in, so I’m not going to list these all here. But this is his presentation of them:
Comparison
Whilst these lists all differ significantly, it’s certainly possible to see some links between them:
| My suggested skills | My predictions for 2016 competencies | Dave’s actual 2016 competencies | Dave’s 2021 competencies | AIHR’s capabilities | Josh’s capabilities |
| Digital immersion | Digital activist | Technology and media integrator | Digital fundamentals | HR tech, service delivery | |
| Wisdom artistry | Wisdom artist Idea collector and integrator |
Analytics designer and interpretor | Mobilises information | Data driven | People analytics |
| Compliance manager | Labour relations | ||||
| Paradox navigator | Simplifies complexity | ||||
| Friend in business | Credible activist | Fosters collaboration | Working with senior leadership | ||
| Experience orientation | Employee experience HR solution design Diversity and inclusion |
||||
| Organisation and workplace designer Organisation developer Human capital developer |
Culture and change champion Human capital curator Total rewards steward |
Advances human capability | 5 functional capabilities | 10 functional capabilities | |
| Value creator Best fit strategist |
Strategic positioner | Accelerates business | Business acumen | Business acumen | |
| Leadership of HR |
Insights
Dave’s new competencies may have been over simplified. The absence of anything digital (although this is included within mobilises information) looks like a significant gap. As does lack of employee experience and a people first perspective. (My own list of skills is over simplified too, but then CMSWire asked me to suggest just two or three skills.)
The two other Academy’s lists of capabilities are very functionally heavy. That’s appropriate for capabilities, but using these does risk losing sight of what’s important in how we do things, rather than just what we do, eg dealing with paradox / complexity.
There are significant differences between my own competencies and the others. My nearest equivalent to Dave’s Accelerates business is Value creator which is a very people focused competency (focusing on creating value for the business through people). AHRI’s and Josh’s capabilities are all about the business.
Similarly, my closest comparator to Mobilises information is Wisdom artistry, which is, as the name deliberately suggests, more about wisdom and art than it is data or analytics.
These differences mean organisations should think carefully about the skills, competencies or capabilities they invest in. Like everything else in HR, there is choice and what’s important is best fit, not best practice.
This is especially the case given that whilst Dave’s competencies and Josh’s capabilities have been developed analytically by looking at what has worked in HR over the last six months of the pandemic, what HR will really need for the rest of the 2020s may be very different to this.
I still suggest Digital immersion, Wisdom artistry and Experience orientation would be great places to start developing HR’s competencies / capabilities.
You may therefore be interested in these Strategic HR Academy programmes, all starting in September 2021:
- Digital transformation for HR
- Strategic partnering (includes focus on strategic measurement and analytics)
- Putting people first
More broadly, my academy does focus on capabilities too, rather than just skills or competencies, but these are strategic capabilities, not just functional ones. That is, programmes all focus on creating value through people, and acting through complexity / paradox, etc.
Jon Ingham
HR Strategist, Trainer, Learning Facilitator at the Jon Ingham Strategic HR Academy
