In an AACRAO SEM Conference session titled “Talent Management: Using a Competency Model to Attract, Develop and Retrain Future Enrollment Managers,” DePaul University presenters David Kalsbeek, Senior Vice President of Enrollment Management & Marketing; Tina Cajigas, Director of Divisional Workforce Strategy; and Jane McGrath, Assistant Vice President of Division and Planning & Management, shared their efforts in “de-jobbing” their department’s workforce.
Five years ago, DePaul’s Enrollment Management & Marketing division began working with the university’s Human Resources department to become a competency-based organization that is less concerned about jobs and more focused on talent. Kalsbeek said his division embarked on the effort in hopes of developing a structure that could be replicated across the campus.
“The key to our success is the talent of the people we have,” said Kalsbeek, who wrote a chapter on the strategic view of workforce strategy and talent management in The SEM Revolution.
The presenters looked at the DePaul employee lifecycle, from attraction and selection to development, reward, and retention. They created a competency library that includes four categories: foundational, functional, strategic, and sustaining. “Competency” at DePaul is defined as “a combination of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviors that describes how to accomplish what an individual is expected to contribute.” These competencies are now part of the role profile established with Human Resources.
The university’s Enrollment Management & Marketing division is organized into seven different strategy units. It has 275 full-time employees, 200 job descriptions, and 39 competencies.
The presenters emphasized the benefits of implementing a talent management strategy, which includes providing management the tools to discuss with their staff career performance and expectations. A talent strategy, they noted, also better enables staff to drive their own careers and advocate their own movement and growth in their field.