What Are the Differences Between a Skill, a Competency, a Behavioral Indicator, and a Skills Framework?

Sometimes it can be overwhelming trying to make sense of all the vocabulary in the world of business. If you have been struggling to understand and differentiate skills, competencies, behavioral indicators, and skills frameworks you are not alone. It is important to know what the difference between these is, however, which brings us to the title of the article:

What are the differences between a skill, a competency, a behavioral indicator, and a skills framework?

What is a Skill?

To begin, we will look at what skills are. Skills are the foundation for competencies. They are specific learned abilities that a person needs to perform a job well.

Skills give an employee the capability to use their knowledge to execute or perform tasks effectively. Skills are agile, efficient, and can be developed and improved over different lengths of time. Skills can also be measured and standardized as people have different proficiencies in them.

You are also able to apply skills to perform tasks, which helps organizations complete projects. Skills are also transferable. This means that you can use the same skill across organizations, positions, projects, and any tasks that need completing.

What is a Competency?

Competencies include the related knowledge, skills, abilities, and attributes that make up a person’s job. Having competencies gives employees the ability to do something successfully and efficiently. An example of a competency is the ability to make business decisions.

Competencies are more than just knowledge and ability, as they are a mix of behaviors and attitudes. Competencies can also include skills too. When speaking about competencies, it is important to know that they are value-based and rigid.

They are not as agile as skills, and it can take months or years for a person to achieve and reach a specific competency. Competencies are also non-transferable, which means that they are more role specific. As this is the case, it is vital to know which competencies are required for distinct roles within your organization.

What Are Behavioral Indicators?

Behavioral indicators are descriptions of what somebody needs to do to demonstrate that they have certain skills or competencies. It is fine to say you know about something, but you need to be able to do it too. As this is the case, behavioral indicators can measure the success that someone has at performing their skills or competencies.

When talking about behavioral indicators, it is important to note that they are often specific and measurable. This means they can be used to track progress in developing the specific skills necessary for a job. For example, you may want your employees to focus on customer service. One of the behavioral indicators for this could be that they respond to a customer complaint within 24 hours.

Behavioral indicators can help your organization find the right candidate for a job. This is partly due to their use for building a skills framework. So, let us find out what a skills framework is.

What is a Skills Framework?

A skills framework is an organized method of grouping job roles with activities and abilities that relate to it. Doing this allows organizations to have a simpler way of measuring the expertise that employees or candidates have in different tasks. A skills framework typically includes a set of core skills, competencies, and behavioral indicators.

Using a skills framework enables your organization to see which skills, competencies, and behavioral indicators matter most for specific positions. This means that an organization can quickly identify and assign appropriate tasks. It also makes it easier to track employees’ progress by looking at the improvements that have been made over time.

By having skills, competencies, and behavioral indicators in your skills framework, you can use it as a guide for hiring and development practices. Having a model such as a skills framework helps you to easily find candidates that demonstrate proficiency in what is needed. As well as this, you can build development plans for employees.

Understand the Difference

As you can see from the article, skills, competencies, behavioral indicators, and a skills framework all differ but feed into each other. The differences are subtle but significant. Understand the importance of all four elements and how they can improve practices and bring success to your organization.  Do this effectively, and you can ensure you have a comprehensive skills framework tailored to your organization.