In Oracle HRMS, a competency is any measurable behavior or ability that is required by the enterprise and that a worker demonstrates in the work context. For example, a competency can be:
Knowledge (such as knowledge of consumer-protection or taxation laws)
A skill (such as negotiation or critical thinking)
An attitude (such as tenacity or commitment)
An attribute (such as absence of color blindness or perfect pitch)
Competency definitions are the basis of many talent-management activities. In particular, you can define:
A competency profile for each worker showing the worker's level of proficiency in various competencies
See: Competency Profiles
The competency requirements of a business group, organization, job, or position to enable you to identify suitable candidates for vacancies and assess workers against these requirements.
You can define competencies that are available to a particular business group only. Alternatively, you can create global competencies, which are available throughout the enterprise, provided that your system administrator has:
Set the HR:Cross Business Group profile option to Yes
Identified a global competence key flexfield structure on the HR:Global Competence Flex Structure profile option
Global competencies are most useful if your enterprise operates in multiple countries but you want to use the same competency definitions in all legislations.
The HRMS competency functions enable you to set performance expectations for your workers that are consistent and objective.
During appraisal activities, HRMS enables you to assess the degree to which a worker possesses a competency. For example, for the negotiation skills competency, a worker's proficiency level could be 3 on a scale of 1 through 5, where 5 indicates the greatest expertise.
You can define competencies individually in the Competencies window. Alternatively, you can upload multiple global competencies from third-party suppliers using the Oracle HRMS Web ADI interface. This approach may be useful to enterprises implementing competency support for the first time.
See: Defining Competencies and Uploading Third-Party Competency Information
Some legislations identify a special type of competency known as a unit standard competency. (A Unit Standard is typically a nationally registered document that describes performance standards for a competency. Industry representatives define and maintain the Unit Standard.)
A formal qualification results from the achievement of one or more unit standard competencies. Such qualifications are registered with a national Qualifications Framework, which identifies, for example, the number of credits attached to the qualification and to its constituent competencies, the awarding body, and the field of learning to which the qualification belongs.
If your enterprise defines many competencies, you may find it helpful to classify them by type. For example, you can define a competency type of Language Skills to include any language competency that your enterprise values (such as written Spanish, spoken Spanish, written Japanese, spoken Japanese, and so on). You can then retrieve competency definitions by type.
See: Competency Types