COMPETENCY MAPPING: AN ESSENTIAL TOOL FOR HR MANAGERS IN BANKING INDUSTRY TO BECOME STRATEGIC PARTNERS (AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE)

The road map for HR becoming more of a strategic partner seems clear both with respect to what it needs to do to be involved in a variety of strategic activities and to become a full strategic partner: HR needs to organize itself so that it has skills and expertise at the corporate level. It needs to have metrics and analytics that measure the impact of human capital practices and programs. In today’s business scenario, it is imperative to establish a foundation of well-defined competencies. Every organization needs to align the job description with strategic goals of the organization along with a clearly indicated expectation from the employee over the roles, responsibilities, performance standards and competencies required. As far as Indian banking sector is concerned, we still have scope of putting talent management ahead of economic and operational decisions. Though, we can’t underestimate the importance of financial and operational decisions, it is also a need of the time to think about effective leadership and development of talent to deal with the challenges of turbulent market conditions, changed employment relations, managers’ decision on premature retirements and issues such as layoff, retrenchments etc. To overcome these challenges, competency mapping model will be helpful in identification of training needs for HR managers to serve as HR strategic partners. This paper is an attempt to develop a competency mapping model for HR managers in Banking Industry for the purpose of leadership development. Rapid and unpredictable technological changes and the increased emphasis on quality of services are compelling banking businesses to recruit adaptable and competent employees. At the top of the competency model are five responsibilities or lenses, through which HR managers can view the model: Strategic Architect, Business Experts, Leadership Champions, Change Agents and HR experts.