The 'iceberg model' of competencies, in which knowledge and skills are visible while self-concept, traits and motives lie hidden, is associated with:

Spencer and Spencer, building on McClelland

Edgar Schein's 'career anchors' are:

The self-perceived talents, motives and values a person will not give up when making career choices

The five stages of career development from exploration to decline

The six vocational personality types

The positions on a replacement chart

Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) improve on graphic rating scales by:

Defining each scale point with specific examples of job behaviour drawn from critical incidents

Ranking all employees against one another

Forcing ratings into a normal distribution

Using only quantitative output targets

Kurt Lewin's three-step model of organisational change consists of:

Unfreezing, changing (moving), refreezing

Diagnosis, intervention, evaluation

The nine-box grid used in talent management plots an employee's:

Current performance against future potential

Concern for people against concern for production

Skill variety against task identity

Strategic HRM: Competency Mapping, Balanced Scorecard, Careers, Performance Management, OD and Talent

Unit 3 is HRM at its strategic and developmental end. It asks how HR earns a seat in strategy, how competencies are mapped and how the balanced scorecard cascades to HR, how careers are planned, how performance is managed and appraised — the largest single topic, with a dozen methods and their errors — how organisations are developed and changed, and how talent and skills are built. The paper asks it as models with named authors and lists with a fixed order; this chapter gives the models as tables and the lists in the order the examiner expects.

1. Strategic role of HRM; competency mapping and the balanced scorecard

Strategic human resource management is the pattern of planned HR deployments and activities intended to enable the organisation to achieve its goals (Wright and McMahan, 1992) — HR as a source of competitive advantage rather than an administrative function. Its theoretical base is the resource-based view: Barney's VRIO test says a resource confers sustained advantage when it is valuable, rare, inimitable and organisationally exploited, and people, culture and HR systems are the resources hardest to imitate. Two prescriptions compete. Best fit (the contingency view) says HR practices must fit the business strategy — vertical or external fit — and one another — horizontal or internal fit — so Miles and Snow's defenders, prospectors and analysers, or Porter's cost leaders and differentiators, need different HR bundles (Schuler and Jackson's behavioural role theory). Best practice (the universalistic view) says a set of high-performance work practices works everywhere — Pfeffer's seven: employment security, selective hiring, self-managed teams, high contingent pay, extensive training, reduced status differences, information sharing; Huselid's 1995 study put numbers on the payoff. Dave Ulrich's 1997 model gives HR four roles on two axes (strategic versus operational, process versus people): strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert and employee champion — later recast as HR business partner, centres of expertise and shared services, the 'three-legged stool'. Devanna, Fombrun and Tichy's integration of HR with strategy, Lengnick-Hall's typology, and the HR scorecard of Becker, Huselid and Ulrich (2001), which measures HR deliverables against strategy, complete the paper's set.

Competency mapping and the balanced scorecard
Tool	Origin	Structure	Use in HR
Competency	McClelland's 1973 paper 'Testing for competence rather than intelligence'; Boyatzis's The Competent Manager (1982); Spencer and Spencer's Competence at Work (1993)	An underlying characteristic causally related to superior performance — the iceberg model: knowledge and skill visible above the waterline, self-concept, traits and motives hidden below; threshold versus differentiating competencies; technical, behavioural, managerial and leadership types	Competency mapping identifies the competencies a role needs and the levels required, through job analysis, behavioural event interviews (Flanagan's critical incidents applied by McClelland), expert panels, surveys and repertory grids, producing a competency framework or dictionary and a gap analysis per person
Uses of competency mapping	Competency-based HRM	Recruitment and selection (competency-based interviews, assessment centres), training needs, performance management, career and succession planning, competency-based pay	Competency versus competence: the American usage (competency, a person's behaviour) against the British (competence, a job's output standard — NVQs)
Balanced scorecard	Kaplan and Norton, Harvard Business Review, 1992; The Balanced Scorecard (1996); The Strategy-Focused Organization (2001)	Four perspectives — financial, customer, internal business process, learning and growth — each with objectives, measures, targets and initiatives, linked in a strategy map by cause and effect: learning drives processes, processes drive customer outcomes, customer outcomes drive financial results	HR lives in the learning and growth perspective — employee capabilities, information systems, motivation and alignment — and the HR scorecard (Becker, Huselid, Ulrich) cascades it into HR deliverables, HR systems, HR efficiency and alignment measures; the syllabus's 'balanced scoreboard' is this scorecard

⚠️ Four perspectives, and which one is the base

The scorecard is asked two ways: name the four perspectives, and name the one at the bottom of the strategy map. The base is learning and growth — the intangible assets of people, systems and culture — because in Kaplan and Norton's causal chain everything else is built on it; financial is at the top as the lagging outcome. A question offering 'human resources' or 'employees' as a perspective wants 'learning and growth', its official name.

2. Career planning and development

A career is the sequence of work-related positions, experiences and attitudes a person holds over a lifetime. Career planning is the individual's process of setting career goals and the paths to them; career management is the organisation's process of matching individual aspirations with organisational needs through career paths, succession planning, counselling and development; career development joins the two. Donald Super's life-span theory gives the stages — growth (to 14), exploration (15–24), establishment (25–44), maintenance (45–64), decline or disengagement (65 and after) — and HR texts compress them into exploration, establishment, mid-career, late career and decline, with the mid-career plateau (Ference, Stoner and Warren's learners, stars, solid citizens and deadwood) as the crisis point. Edgar Schein's career anchors (1978) are the self-perceived talents, motives and values a person will not give up — technical or functional competence, general managerial competence, autonomy and independence, security and stability, entrepreneurial creativity, service and dedication to a cause, pure challenge, and lifestyle. Holland's vocational types (realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising, conventional — the RIASEC hexagon) predict person-occupation fit. Modern career concepts: the protean career (Hall, 1976 — self-directed, values-driven, managed by the person rather than the organisation), the boundaryless career (Arthur and Rousseau, 1996 — across employers), the kaleidoscope career (Mainiero and Sullivan — authenticity, balance, challenge), the dual-career couple, the dual ladder (technical and managerial tracks for specialists), career breaks and second careers, and the shift from job security to employability. Career development tools are self-assessment workbooks, career workshops, career counselling, mentoring (Kram's career and psychosocial functions) and coaching, job rotation and stretch assignments, assessment centres and 360-degree feedback for development, individual development plans, tuition support, and the career centre or portal that publishes internal vacancies and career paths.

3. Performance management and appraisal

Performance management is the continuous process of planning, monitoring, developing, rating and rewarding performance so that individual and team results serve organisational goals (Armstrong and Baron); performance appraisal is the periodic, formal evaluation within it. The cycle runs performance planning (goals and competencies agreed — Drucker's MBO of 1954 with SMART goals; key result areas and key performance indicators), continuous monitoring and feedback and coaching, mid-year review, year-end appraisal, and the linkage to rewards, development and career decisions; potential appraisal looks forward to capacity for higher roles where performance appraisal looks back. Appraisal serves administrative purposes (pay, promotion, transfer, termination) and developmental purposes (feedback, training needs, career planning), and the two conflict when one form serves both. Who appraises: the immediate superior, peers, subordinates (upward), self, customers, and all of them in 360-degree feedback (Edwards and Ewen), with 720-degree adding a second round after development.

Appraisal methods
Group	Method	How it works	Limit
Traditional — comparative	Ranking, paired comparison, forced distribution (the bell curve — Jack Welch's 20-70-10 'vitality curve')	Employees compared with one another; paired comparison needs n(n−1)/2 pairs	No absolute standard; forced distribution demoralises and is being abandoned
Traditional — absolute	Graphic rating scale, checklist and weighted checklist, forced choice, essay or free-form, critical incident (Flanagan), confidential report (government), field review	Traits or behaviours rated against a scale or recorded as they occur	Rating scales invite halo and leniency; essays depend on the writer; critical incidents are time-consuming
Modern — results	Management by objectives (Drucker, 1954; Odiorne); balanced scorecard-based appraisal; KRA and KPI systems	Jointly set, measurable objectives; appraisal against achievement	Neglects how results were achieved; hard for jobs without quantifiable output
Modern — behavioural	Behaviourally anchored rating scales (BARS — Smith and Kendall, 1963), behavioural observation scales (BOS), mixed standard scales	Scale points are specific behaviour statements drawn from critical incidents	Costly to build a scale per job; still rater-dependent
Modern — multi-source and centre	360-degree feedback; assessment centre (AT&T, 1956 — in-basket, group exercises, simulations, observed by trained assessors); psychological appraisal; human resource (cost) accounting (Likert; Lev and Schwartz — India's BHEL and Infosys)	Multiple raters, or standardised exercises, or the money value of people	360 is for development more than pay; centres are expensive; HR accounting is valuation, not appraisal

⚠️ Rater errors, each with its own name

Halo (one trait colours all), horn (the negative halo), leniency and strictness (systematically high or low), central tendency (everyone average), recency (the last month decides the year), primacy or first impression, spillover (last year's rating repeats), contrast (rated against the previous employee, not the standard), similar-to-me, stereotyping, and the attribution errors. Remedies: training raters, multiple raters, behaviour-anchored scales, calibration meetings, documenting incidents through the year, and separating developmental from pay-related appraisal. The 'appraisal interview' that follows is tell-and-sell, tell-and-listen, or problem-solving (Norman Maier), and the problem-solving form is the one recommended.

4. Organisation development, change and OD interventions; talent management and skill development

Organisation development is a long-range, planned, organisation-wide effort, managed from the top, to increase effectiveness and health through planned interventions in the organisation's processes using behavioural-science knowledge (Beckhard, 1969; French and Bell). Its values are humanistic and democratic — respect for people, trust, power equalisation, confrontation of problems, participation — and its method is action research: diagnosis, data feedback, joint planning, action, evaluation. Its intellectual sources are Kurt Lewin (field theory, group dynamics, the 1946 T-group at Bethel, and the three-step change model of unfreezing, changing or moving, and refreezing, with force-field analysis of driving and restraining forces), the survey-feedback work of Likert and Mann at Michigan, and the socio-technical systems of the Tavistock Institute (Trist and Bamforth's coal-mine study). Change models the paper pairs with authors: Lewin's three steps; Kotter's eight steps (1996) — establish urgency, form a guiding coalition, create a vision, communicate it, empower action, generate short-term wins, consolidate gains, anchor in culture; Beckhard and Harris's change formula; Bridges's transitions; ADKAR (Prosci — awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, reinforcement); Nadler and Tushman's congruence model; and Kübler-Ross's grief curve applied to change. Resistance to change is individual (habit, security, economic fear, fear of the unknown, selective information processing) and organisational (structural inertia, group inertia, threat to expertise, power and resource allocation), and is managed by education and communication, participation, facilitation and support, negotiation, manipulation and co-optation, and coercion (Kotter and Schlesinger, 1979).

OD interventions, by the level they target
Level	Interventions	Names
Individual and interpersonal	Sensitivity training (T-groups, laboratory training), coaching and counselling, transactional analysis, life and career planning, role analysis, Johari window feedback	Lewin, Bradford, Benne — National Training Laboratories, 1947
Team and group	Team building, process consultation, role negotiation, responsibility charting, quality circles, self-managed teams	Schein's process consultation (1969); Harrison's role negotiation
Intergroup	Intergroup team building, third-party peacemaking, confrontation meeting, organisational mirror	Blake, Shepard and Mouton; Walton's third-party intervention; Beckhard's confrontation meeting (1967)
Organisation-wide (comprehensive)	Survey feedback, Grid OD (six phases from the Managerial Grid), MBO, quality of work life, structural interventions (work redesign, socio-technical systems, collateral organisation), large-group interventions (future search, open space, appreciative inquiry — Cooperrider's discovery, dream, design, destiny), total quality management, learning organisation, strategic change and culture change programmes	Likert and Mann; Blake and Mouton; Cooperrider and Srivastva (1987); Weisbord's six-box diagnostic model

Talent management is the integrated set of processes for attracting, identifying, developing, engaging, deploying and retaining the people who matter most to the organisation's success — the 'war for talent' phrase is McKinsey's from 1997. Its components are workforce planning tied to strategy, employer branding and the employee value proposition, talent acquisition, identification of high-potentials (the nine-box grid plotting performance against potential, from GE), leadership development and talent pools, succession planning (replacement charts for key positions, ready-now and ready-later successors), engagement and retention (stay interviews, differentiated rewards), and talent analytics. Skill development is the national and organisational effort to build employable skills: the National Skill Development Corporation (2008, a public-private company under the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship created in 2014), the National Skill Development Mission and the Skill India campaign (2015), the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (2015, short-term certified training with a fourth phase launched in 2024), the National Skills Qualifications Framework (2013, ten levels), Sector Skill Councils that write occupational standards, the Skill India Digital Hub, the Apprentices Act 1961 as amended in 2014 with the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme (2016), the PM Internship Scheme announced in the 2024 budget, and Industrial Training Institutes under the Directorate General of Training. Inside firms, skill development means competency frameworks, learning management systems, reskilling and upskilling for automation, micro-credentials, and the learning organisation (Senge's five disciplines — personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning, systems thinking).

Key takeaways

SHRM rests on the resource-based view and Barney's VRIO; best fit says HR must match strategy vertically and cohere horizontally, best practice (Pfeffer's seven) says one bundle works everywhere; Ulrich's four roles are strategic partner, change agent, administrative expert and employee champion.
Competencies come from McClelland (1973) and the iceberg model of Spencer and Spencer; the balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1992) has financial, customer, internal process and learning-and-growth perspectives, with learning and growth at the base.
Super's stages run growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, decline; Schein's eight career anchors include technical, managerial, autonomy, security, entrepreneurial creativity, service, challenge and lifestyle; the protean career is Hall's and the boundaryless career Arthur and Rousseau's.
MBO is Drucker 1954, BARS Smith and Kendall 1963, the assessment centre AT&T 1956, 360-degree feedback multi-source; rater errors are halo, leniency, central tendency, recency, spillover, contrast; Maier's recommended appraisal interview is problem-solving.
OD is Beckhard's planned, top-managed, behavioural-science effort using action research; Lewin's three steps are unfreeze, change, refreeze; Kotter has eight; sensitivity training is individual, team building group, survey feedback and Grid OD organisation-wide; the nine-box grid identifies high-potentials; Skill India and PMKVY date from 2015 and the NSQF from 2013.

Practice questions (9)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Dave Ulrich's model of HR roles places 'strategic partner', 'change agent', 'administrative expert' and:
1. Employee champion
2. Talent scout
3. Compliance officer
4. Chief learning officer
Show answer
Answer: A — Employee champion
Ulrich's 1997 four roles sit on two axes — strategic versus operational focus, and process versus people. Employee champion is the operational, people-focused role; the model later evolved into the HR business partner, centres of expertise and shared services.
In the balanced scorecard developed by Kaplan and Norton, the four perspectives are financial, customer, internal business process and:
1. Learning and growth
2. Human resources
3. Shareholder value
4. Market share
Show answer
Answer: A — Learning and growth
Learning and growth — people, systems and organisational procedures — is the fourth perspective and the base of the strategy map, from which process improvements, customer outcomes and financial results follow. Shareholder value and market share are measures within the financial and customer perspectives.
The 'iceberg model' of competencies, in which knowledge and skills are visible while self-concept, traits and motives lie hidden, is associated with:
1. Spencer and Spencer, building on McClelland
2. Kaplan and Norton
3. Hackman and Oldham
4. Blake and Mouton
Show answer
Answer: A — Spencer and Spencer, building on McClelland
McClelland's 1973 paper started the competency movement, Boyatzis defined managerial competencies in 1982, and Spencer and Spencer's Competence at Work (1993) gave the iceberg. Kaplan and Norton is the scorecard, Hackman and Oldham the job characteristics model, Blake and Mouton the Managerial Grid.
Edgar Schein's 'career anchors' are:
1. The self-perceived talents, motives and values a person will not give up when making career choices
2. The five stages of career development from exploration to decline
3. The six vocational personality types
4. The positions on a replacement chart
Show answer
Answer: A — The self-perceived talents, motives and values a person will not give up when making career choices
Schein (1978) identified eight anchors — technical competence, managerial competence, autonomy, security, entrepreneurial creativity, service, pure challenge, lifestyle. The stages are Super's, the six types Holland's RIASEC, and replacement charts belong to succession planning.
Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) improve on graphic rating scales by:
1. Defining each scale point with specific examples of job behaviour drawn from critical incidents
2. Ranking all employees against one another
3. Forcing ratings into a normal distribution
4. Using only quantitative output targets
Show answer
Answer: A — Defining each scale point with specific examples of job behaviour drawn from critical incidents
Smith and Kendall (1963) anchored scale points in observable behaviours so that raters judge against the same standard, reducing halo and ambiguity. Ranking is comparative, forced distribution is the bell curve, and output targets describe MBO.
A rater who evaluates every employee as 'average' to avoid extreme judgements commits the error of:
1. Central tendency
2. Halo effect
3. Recency effect
4. Leniency
Show answer
Answer: A — Central tendency
Central tendency clusters ratings at the midpoint. Halo lets one trait colour all ratings, recency weights the latest period, and leniency inflates everyone's rating rather than flattening it.
Kurt Lewin's three-step model of organisational change consists of:
1. Unfreezing, changing (moving), refreezing
2. Diagnosis, intervention, evaluation
3. Awareness, desire, knowledge
4. Urgency, coalition, vision
Show answer
Answer: A — Unfreezing, changing (moving), refreezing
Lewin: unfreeze the status quo by disturbing the equilibrium of driving and restraining forces, move to the new state, and refreeze to make it permanent. Awareness-desire-knowledge begins ADKAR; urgency-coalition-vision begins Kotter's eight steps.
Which OD intervention involves collecting attitude data from members by questionnaire, feeding the summarised results back to the groups, and jointly planning corrective action?
1. Survey feedback
2. Sensitivity training
3. Process consultation
4. Grid OD
Show answer
Answer: A — Survey feedback
Survey feedback, developed by Likert and Mann at Michigan, is an organisation-wide, data-based intervention. Sensitivity training is the T-group for individuals, process consultation (Schein) helps a group see its own processes, and Grid OD is Blake and Mouton's six-phase programme.
The nine-box grid used in talent management plots an employee's:
1. Current performance against future potential
2. Salary against tenure
3. Concern for people against concern for production
4. Skill variety against task identity
Show answer
Answer: A — Current performance against future potential
Three levels of performance by three of potential give nine boxes, with high-performance, high-potential 'stars' targeted for succession and development. People against production is the Managerial Grid; skill variety and task identity are job characteristics dimensions.