Competencies: The Right Foundation The Right Foundation For Effective Human Resources Management

Competencies: A Poor Foundation ~~ ~ ~ for the New Pay, contains an inter- ~~ ~ ~ esting summary of the lessons ~~ ~ ~ learned in connection with pay-for- ~~ ~ ~ skills in manufacturing, and we find ~M ~ ~~ many points of agreement.There ~~ tt~M are, however, two important areas ~N that require further comment.~N The first area that deserves com-~t ment is his assertion that job-based ~N t~~t pay approaches are well on their way ~~~~9~~~ to being replaced by person-based ttttNNHB~~ pay In actual practice, we find orga- nizations are paying much greater attention today to variable pay tied to company, unit, or team performance.Just as important, pay is not a matter of one right answer, as suggested by pay-for-person replacing pay-for-job.Competitive advantage comes from strategic differentiation, which itself comes from the ways that people conduct their work.If people in different organizations need to act differently, then the ways that they are select- ed, trained, organized, managed, and paid need