By

Dhiraz Srungaram

HR-109524

Competency Mapping, skill Gap Analysis for

Employees at ITC

In 1979, ITC entered the paperboards business by promoting ITC Bhadrachalam Paperboards Limited, which today has become the market leader in India. Bhadrachalam Paperboards amalgamated with the company effective March 13, 2002 and became a Division of the Company, Bhadrachalam Paperboards Division. In November, 2002, this Division merged with the Company’s Tribeni Tissues Division to form the Paperboards & Specialty Papers Division. ITC’s paperboards’ technology, productivity, quality and manufacturing processes are comparable to the best in the world. It has also made an immense contribution to the development of Sarapaka, an economically backward area in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

History of ITC-PSPD Bhadrachalam

The Paperboards & Specialty Papers Division came into existence in November 2002 with the Amalgamation of ITC Bhadrachalam Paperboards Ltd with ITC Ltd and incorporates Tribeni Tissues.

ITC entered the field of paperboards in 1975 when it incorporated Bhadrachalam Paperboards Ltd. The new company was setup as a integrated paperboard manufacturing facility and commenced operations at Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh.

ITC-PSPD: A Journey towards Excellence

The mill is focused on producing Paperboards for packaging and graphics segments and the product range includes Cyber XLPac (folding boxboards), Pearl/Saphire Graphik (solid bleached boards) high value boards apart from the Ecoviron range of recycled boards. The mill also makes liquid packaging boards for Tetrapak in India. The unit is ISO 14001 certified for Environment Management Systems.

Contd…

Competency Mapping is a process of identifying key competencies for an organization and/or a job and incorporating those competencies throughout the various processes (i.e. job evaluation, training, recruitment) of the organization.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has defined “COMPETENCIES” as the combination of skills, attributes and behaviors that are directly related to successful performance on the job. Competency represents observable and measurable knowledge, skill, ability, behaviors and attitudes associated with excellent job performance, work results or outputs. It defines performance in terms of what work is done and how it is done.

Competency mapping identifies an individual’s strengths and weakness in order to help them better understands themselves and to show them where career development efforts need to be directed. Competencies are derived from specific job families within the organization and are often grouped around categories such as strategy, relationships, innovation, leadership, risk-taking, decision making, emotional Intelligence etc.

Competency Mapping

In the early 1970s, Harvard psychologist David McClelland first suggested the importance of testing for competence rather than intelligence. Subsequently, competency models have been used worldwide to establish the building blocks of superior performance in many professional and technical academic, organizational and manufacturing endeavors.

This forms the backdrop of employee competency listing at ITC-PSPD. The endeavor of this project is to identify these competencies to fulfill the need for sustained superior performance needed for the company to become a global major in Paperboards & Specialty Papers.

Idea behind Competency Mapping

It is the process whereby, based on the organizations structure each and every role is defined and the jobs performed by the role holder are clearly put down (Job Descriptions) and the competencies required for each and every job is identified. When such an exercise is undertaken, it gives a clear picture of the competency level of each role and its linkages with other roles. Based on the competency level data and individual performance, correlation also can be established between the required competency level and the individual performance.

• Using this gap between the required performance and the actual performance, training needs are indentified and bridged through proper training programs.

Objective of Competency mapping

Functional skills: The functional competencies are the core on-job competencies/skills required for performing the job satisfactorily.

Cross Functional skills: Those skills which enable him to perform an employees job satisfactorily but are not core to his/her job area are cross functional skills (safety, health, Industrial relations, HR, environment etc)

Behavioral skills: Since jobs are done in teams behavioral skills play a crucial role in building trust, confidence and bonding among team members.

Types of competency

Total Productive Maintenance is a vehicle of change. It’s primary objectives are

Zero Break DownsZero Quality RejectionsZero Accidents

TPM

Even though competency mapping has a wider context and usage the endeavor was to conduct it under the TPM umbrella. TPM has recently been launched at ITC-PSPD and competency mapping provides the basic ground work for conducting a companywide TPM initiative.

According to TPM philosophy skills are the power to act rightly and reflexively based on learned knowledge in all phenomena and sustain it for a long time. TPM is an unique Japanese approach which was pioneered in the automobile industry by stalwarts like Toyota, Nissan and Mazda. Its popularity soon spread to process industries such as Food, Rubber, Oil, Refining, Chemicals, Pharmacy, Cement, Paper, Iron and Steel etc. TPM today has spread far and wide – companies in USA, Belgium, France, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Brazil, China, Korea etc have taken to it.

Total Productive Maintenance

In India it is being implemented in many companies such as

TVS Group - Sundaram fasteners, Sundaram clayton.

Birla Group – Tanfaac, High Tech Carbon, Indo-Gulf, Orient Cements.

Hindustan leverMahindra & MahindraMukand Iron & steelsJK papers

Contd….

It is achieved by involving all the people in the organization. On an organization level it involves effective utilization of all resources – Men, Material, Machine. And on an individual level it involves availability of platform for individual’s contribution towards improvement.

Pride in taking part in improvements Reduced workload Improved work environment. Improved Knowledge and skills  Global competitiveness today requires TPM to make the organization

more productive and efficient. It also improves overall prosperity of all stakeholders – employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers and the society. The crucial component of TPM is constant skill up gradation and training to fulfill organizational needs in a fast changing business scenario. Hence education and training is an essential part of TPM.

Contd..

IdentificationStandardizationAssessmentCertification Two other important processes that ensue

from the development of competencies are:o Competence-based Trainingo Competence-based Human Resource

Management

Processes in a Competency-Based Approach

Experts Rating of Job Analysis 360 degree Multi-rater Feedback Organizational Surveys Assessment Centers Psychometric Testing

 Ideal methods of competency mapping

Creation of a competency Directory

Based on the organization’s structure each and every role is defined and the jobs are performed by the role holder are clearly put down (Job descriptions).

Interview the role holder to find out what are the competencies required to perform the given jobs. Make a checklist of the competencies based on the interviews.

Interview the supervisor/Manager if the role holder to elicit their expectations from the role holder and their views on the competencies required to perform the role effectively. Make a checklist of competencies based on supervisors/managers expectations.

Identify a star performer in the same or similar role and find out the competencies in his/her enabling to give peak performance.

Consolidate all the above four checklists and finalize the list of competencies for a role holder along with jobs performed.

Methodology Adopted

Conducting a 180 degree assessment of the employee

Interview the role holder to access their competencies based on the questionnaire prepared in the previous step

Interview the supervisors/managers of the role holder to elicit their ratings about the role holder on the competencies.

Interview the supervisors/managers of the role holder to elicit their response on the expected level of competency required to effectively perform the role/job in question.

After this both the expected level and the actual competency level of the role holder is plotted.

From this gap between expected performance and actual performance is identified in the various competencies.

Using this gap training program is designed to bridge this gap and ensure that the employee performs to the expected level of performance or exceeds it.

Method of data collection used: Data collection was primarily carried out by interview and questionnaire

method. A competency questionnaire was prepared from the competency directory and the managers (2 line managers) were asked to rate the workers on a likert scale to determine the existing skill levels of workers.

In order to remove any bias in rating the worker was asked to rate himself on the skill set questionnaire. A composite score was taken to determine the existing skill level of employees. The required skill level was determined through interviews and discussions with managers only.

A weightage of 35% was given to the rating of each manager and a weightage of 30% was given to the workers opinion. The earlier strategy involved a simple mean.

But this was disregarded as it was found that some workers were over rating themselves. To prevent this error from creeping into the grades use of some simple questions was done regarding the topics in the question so that more valid responses come through and slightly reduce the weightage of the workers by around 5%.

Functional and Cross functional scale Level 0: Do not know, not taught. Lack of knowledge and understanding of principles and rules of work and

equipment. Level 1: Know the theory. Knows the principles and rules of work and equipment but cannot do so

when it comes to practice. Level 2: Can do to some degree. Can practice, but performance causes large dispersions and has no

reproducibility. One more step is required, lack of training being the root cause.

Level 3: Can do with confidence and learnt by doing. The body has perfectly learnt it. A good phase to accomplish jobs anytime

and anywhere without mistakes. Level 4: Can do with confidence and can teach others. One who has perfectly mastered. The skill has been perfectly mastered.

Can explain “Know-Why” and the method to transmit skill has been mastered.

Rating scale w.r.t TPM

For behavioral skills the levels are:Likert scale:Level 0: PoorLevel 1: UnsatisfactoryLevel 2: AverageLevel 3: GoodLevel 4: Excellent

Employee curiosity and at times mild hostilityQuantum of workLack of opportunity to implement a 360

degree appraisal schemeInability to implement a psychometric testInconsistency in ratings

Limitations

If a companywide competency mapping is to be done then the employees must be made aware of the meaning, need and advantages of competency mapping. Selling the concept to them is extremely important so that they are more accurate about the responses.

Practical test and theory exams can be conducted to obtain a more objective manifestation of employee skill level

Appraisal should use ratings from a number of managers to ensure lower bias.

Company should set out official skill requirement in each skill set and a means to judge the skills.

The competency mapping data can be used for appraisals, transfers and promotions as well as for recruitment.

Suggestions

  The employees at ITC-PSPD had very rarely been exposed to any sort of interviews. They were

very apprehensive and initially did not open up. A lot convincing talks had been made with the employees to make them believe that the survey for the project would in no way affect them and their jobs.

Sometimes the employees tried to over rate themselves. Thus a manager was very much necessary while conducting interview to the employees in order to make sure they did not perform any such misinterpretations.

Even though the employees were not free to express their views in the presence of a manager, a tradeoff has been made regarding this issue.

Most of the employees in this organization have been working since the day of its inception, so they are due for retirement. While recruiting new employees the company should properly assess their skill level to find a proper fit. The practice of just promoting the E2’s to the rank of E1’s will result in decrease of overall skill level. Skill and knowledge should be the criteria for recruitment and promotion and not experience.

The workforce is not educated. The employees have learnt their job by repeated performance. The culture of the company is such that the employees are not ready to work under pressure.

Employees are ready to do their share of job , but if there is pressure on them the response is very negative.

Views and Observation

 

Competency mapping by Seema Sanghi. Competency based HRM by Ganesh Shermon. HRD in real time – M.G Jomon. www.citehr.com www.shrm.com TPM handbook ( E& T)   

REFERENCES

Thank you

Knowledge / skills/Attitude required by employee S.NOStarting,stopping and running of Lime Kiln 1Centrifugal pumps operation and trouble shooting 2Basic functions of Lime Kiln 3Knowledge on cold start up and shut down procedure 4Knowledge on procedures in oil firing 5Electorstatic Precipitator opearation principle 6Knowledge on functions of cooling towers 7Knowledge on types of pumps 8Knowledge on operation procedures of pumps 9Knowledge on mechanical parts of a pump 10Knowledge on use of equipments related to Lime Kiln 11Controlling,Stabilizing and effective running of Lime Kiln 12Identification of mechanical failures in a pump 13Knowledge on Safe work permit system 14Knowledge on Safety in Chemicals handling 15Knowledge on Sand hoist safety 16Awareness of Belt Conveyor safety 17Knowledge on Compressed air handling 18Awareness of Work at height 19Awareness of Electrical Safety 20Awareness of OHSAS & ISO 14001 21First Aid awareness 22Emergency handling - fire/chlorine leak/etc., 23Awareness of Boiler emmission norms & status 24Awareness of EHS policy 25Role in EHS 26Incident Reporting 27Knowledge of SRP ooperations 28Quality policy awareness 29Should have a positive attitude 30Should have good interpersonal and communication skills 31Ability to train the subordinates 32Assitance to seniors 33Knowledge about House Keeping 5S procedures 34Should be able to work under pressure 35Willingness to work in other areas when demanded to work 36Knowledge about TPM 37Ability to give suggestions and avoid abnormalities in the work area 38

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Required Observed

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Training needs for Lime kiln Operators at SRP

Strenghts Adequate performance Some developmental needs

Starting,stopping and running of Lime Kiln Knowledge on types of pumps mechanical parts of a pump

Centrifugal pumps operation and trouble shooting mechanical failures in a pump Compressed air handling

Basic functions of Lime Kiln Awareness of Work at height Emergency handling - fire leak

Knowledge on cold start up and shut down procedure Awareness of Electrical Safety Boiler emmission norms & status

Knowledge on procedures in oil firing OHSAS & ISO 14001  

Electorstatic Precipitator opearation principle First Aid awareness  

Knowledge on functions of cooling towers Awareness of EHS policy  

Knowledge on operation procedures of pumps Able to work under pressure  

Knowledge on use of equipments related to Lime Kiln    

Controlling,Stabilizing and effective running of Lime Kiln    

Knowledge on Safe work permit system    

Knowledge on Safety in Chemicals handling    

Knowledge on Sand hoist safety    

Awareness of Belt Conveyor safety    

Awareness of Boiler emmission norms & status    

Role in EHS    

Incident Reporting    

Knowledge of SRP ooperations    

Quality policy awareness    

Should have a positive attitude    

Should have good interpersonal and communication skills    

Ability to train the subordinates    

Assitance to seniors    

Knowledge about House Keeping 5S procedures    

Willingness to work in other areas when demanded to work    

Knowledge about TPM    Ability to give suggestions and avoid abnormalities in the work area