The Institute of Management in Government (IMG) here has launched a pioneering project aimed at the development of a competency framework for government employees.
The project, which seeks to identify and develop competencies of individual civil servants through a rigorous participatory exercise with the overall objective of transforming and redefining standards of service delivery, has been launched on a pilot basis in the State Police, Department of Scheduled Tribes Development and Department of Social Justice.
It has been developed on the basis of the resources of the Government of India and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Union government has already piloted it in the project management unit of PMO, Department of Corporate Affairs and Department of Personnel and Training.
“At present, knowledge and skills are the most common criteria for matching people to jobs. These, however, constitute only the baseline requirements of a job. They are definitely necessary, but do not guarantee outstanding performance by a person in an assigned role or responsibility. This project is aimed at development of a methodology whereby competencies that employees in different job profiles must have to discharge his/her job professionally to yield maximum citizen satisfaction,” says R. Ram Mohan, nodal officer of the project.
Evolution of the pilot project involved creation of 3-7 member task forces of best performers/model employees in each identified job category by the three departments. These task force members were mentored and taken through a rigorous drill in a series of formal and informal interactions to exhaustively list the most desirable competencies that they deemed necessary for effective and superior performance in a job role. This was cross-checked and calibrated by involving other stakeholders, including their superiors, subordinates and the general public.
This was subsequently presented before the departments for validation and finalisation.
Four cadres with their matching women categories from the level of CPOs to Dy.SPs were chosen in the Police Department, 12 cadres of employees below the level of DSOs were chosen in the Social Justice Department and seven cadres, including that of tribal promoter a non-regular category, (but vital for service delivery) were chosen in the Scheduled Tribes Development Department.
The project has been launched on a pilot basis in the State Police and some other departments.