In 2019-20, a team of researchers from the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University, Alberta University for the Arts, and the University of Guelph conducted a multi-staged study to identify the competencies that were in highest demand today.
Stage 1: Talent Marketplace Workshop
The study’s first stage involved hosting a workshop of over 100 Calgary-based talent seekers and talent developers. The talent seekers who participated ranged from large corporations to start-ups and from across diverse sectors. One of the key goals of this workshop was to identify current and emerging competencies in high demand.
Stage 2: Enabling Competency Audit
The second stage involved identifying and auditing leading enabling competency models. This process started by identifying and auditing leading enabling competency models. This process led us to identifying the Government of Canada’s Skills for Success. The Government of the United States and industry partners developed the Employment and Training Administration Competency Model Clearinghouse (ETAM); and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Human Skills Matrix. The final element we incorporated was Alberta Education’s eight student competencies. This process identified 28 major enabling competencies that were included in the majority of the four models. Refer to the table below for the results of this audit. The grey cells represent the competencies not included in the respective competency model.
Stage 3: Enabling Competency Mapping
The third stage involved identifying dozens of leading occupation or industry specific competency models. From this process we identified 15 models that provided a diverse sample ranging from social work to engineering to marketing to accounting. From these models, we develop a codebook of competency definitions. The focus on the definition of a competency, allowed us to map a library of common synonyms used to label the major enabling competencies. On average, each of the enabling competencies had seven common synonym labels.
Stage 4: Competency Model Audit
The fourth stage involved auditing the 15 occupation or industry specific competency models to empirically test the commonality of the 28 enabling competencies. This study identified that the 28 enabling competencies represented 2/3rds of all competencies across the 15 models. 1/3rd of the competencies on average were job-specific.
Stage 5: Constructing the Competencies for Life
The final stage involved developing a model that could be adopt broadly. This process involved simplifying terminology and defining competencies clusters to increase the recall. This process involved engaging a diverse range of talent developers and talent seekers to support this refinement.
The final Competencies for Life includes 25 individual competencies in six competency clusters. Following this, we developed synthesized definitions for each of the competencies and competency clusters. This involved developing a series of example scenarios.
All competency models require mechanisms to allow individual talent, talent developers, and talent seekers to assess competency proficiency. During this pilot, we are not testing an overarching architecture. Rather, we encourage individuals and talent developers to reflect on the different forms of evidence required to demonstrate the proficiency of a specific competency.
Based on the results of the pilot, the next phase of this project would involve developing and deploying a comprehensive Competency for Life architecture to support individuals, talent developers and talent seekers assess competency proficiency.
The following section will review each of the six competency clusters and their associated competencies.
[1] The final Competencies for Life model reduced the individual competencies to 25.
