Staff Competencies

A competency is an observable skill or behavior that contributes to workplace success.

The IU Staff Competencies include core competencies that apply to all IU Staff and career level competencies that define skills and behaviors for each specific level within the IU organization.

With the support of President McRobbie and his leadership team, IU Human Resources acquired the Korn Ferry Competency Library to begin the process of determining IU’s competencies. Korn Ferry’s competency framework is based on comprehensive analysis and leverages their decades of expertise to define the skills that matter most for performance.

The IU Staff Competencies draw on IU’s mission, vision, and values, and principles of ethical conduct, as well as IU’s bicentennial and individual campus strategic plans. The IU Staff Competencies emerged as the true definition of what it looks like to work at IU and what we should expect from ourselves and from one another.

Korn Ferry is an organizational consulting firm with clients across the globe that specializes in talent development and organization effectiveness.

The competencies provide a common language for how we work at IU that will foster accountability across the organization and impact your work team. These competencies provide a foundation to align Human Resources’ initiatives including: recruitment, career progression, performance management, learning, and development, and more.

The IU Staff Competencies touch many aspects of the IU employee experience and provides a framework of observable skills and behaviors that contribute to your success at IU.
Competencies help employees to:

• Understand the key behaviors they should demonstrate to ensure success at IU
• Discuss with their supervisors their strengths, areas for growth, and developmental activities
• Take ownership and provide direction for training and development opportunities
• Understand what skills and behaviors would be expected in order move to a new role or to management at IU through the career level competencies

The IU Staff Competencies are a framework for “how we do our jobs” at IU and provide a language of accountability for work teams. Units should consider these competencies when viewing an employee’s performance and contribution.

Utilize the resources on this website for self-learning:

• Visit Career Planning at IU (coming soon) to create a professional development plan and consider how these competencies can help you reach your career goals.
• Discuss your learning goals with your manager.
• Seek and openly listen to feedback from your manager and peers to gain understanding of your strengths and what areas may need further development.
• Creatively consider how you can gain skill in these areas through your work. This could include: leading or participating in a special project, mentoring, shadowing, participating in a committee or group, developing SOPs, and much more.
• Take advantage of IU’s wide variety of training and development opportunities update link when new T&OD site goes live.

As a supervisor, commit to practicing these behaviors yourself and help your staff develop these competencies through the work they do, training opportunities, and more.

Competencies help supervisors to better:

• Screen prospective employees during the hiring process, which results in better hiring decisions. Work with your Human Resources representative to learn more about the Competency-based Interview Guides.
• Discuss with your employees their strengths and areas for growth, and determine plans for development. Use Performance at IU resources to facilitate these conversations.
• Provide direction for training and development opportunities as well as empower and inform employees to seek out self-development opportunities.
• Determine what types of skill sets may be needed in the future in order to support business and succession planning.

Please reach out to your Human Resources representative to learn more about the staff competencies.  Additional information about the IU Staff Competencies will continue to be shared via this website and university-wide communications.

Faculty and/or academic positions are not included this initiative.