Follow up on competency

Here “Can do” refers to employee’s qualification to do the job and “Will do” refers to employee’s motivation to perform. The results are four alternatives:

• Can Do/Will Do – Ideal Situation. The employee is fully qualified and doing the job as desired. The Manager should motivate and incentivize the employee suitably.
• Can’t Do/Will Do – In this case, employee is willing to put in the efforts but is ill equipped skill wise to do the job. This suggests a competency gap and Training will help in this case.
• Can Do/Won’t Do – In this case, employee has all required competencies to complete the job but still is not performing the job as desired. This shows a Motivational problem and counselling will help in this case.
• Can’t Do/Won’t Do – In this case, the employee is lacking in both skills and motivation. Employer needs to weigh the options of counselling the employee versus the success of such counselling. The result could be Job in Jeopardy situation. As Kenneth Cooper notes in his book, Attitudes cannot be developed, only counselled.

It is interesting to note that Can Do/Can’t Do dimension of this model is competency based while Will Do/Won’t Do is not since it involves dealing with motivational attitude.