Glossary

All individual members of staff require both behavioural attributes and technical skills in order to fulfil the requirements of a job. Attributes are more generic in nature (e.g. communication), whereas technical skills are more reflective of the profession (or job family) in which the job sits and describe the specific skills required in order to carry out the role.

The development of behavioural attributes (or competencies) is seen as an essential component of a number of HR initiatives which are being developed to assist the University in the effective management of its staff. A common set of attributes will assist staff in understanding their development needs for current and future roles, building career pathways and understanding how these may be assessed when applying for promotion.

The behavioural attributes framework sets out to create a single, common 'language' that can be used across the University to describe non-technical skills. The attributes are:

• Communication
• Relationship Building
• Valuing Diversity
• Achieving Results
• Strategic Focus
• People Development
• Negotiating and Influencing
• Innovation and Change

• More information on the behavioural attributes framework view

To complement the generic behavioural attributes, job specific (technical) skills needed by staff participating in the Career Pathways project have been identified. These have been drawn up by reviewing PD33s and by consulting with representatives of key staff groups within the University. They will continue to be refined based on feedback by participants as the project continues.

The following show some of the skill areas that have been identified as a result of the project to date.

• IT
• Organisational/time management
• Training/facilitation/presentation
• Analytical
• Project Management
• Budgeting/finance

This is an activity undertaken by both the participant and their manager to assess the level of the participant's job specific (technical) skills and behavioural attributes (competencies) which they can then compare to the requirements of their current post and other roles they may aspire to within the same or similar job family.

These options comprise suggested development activities that participants can undertake in order to meet their development objectives identified during the skills and behavioural attributes analysis process with their manager.

Enables learners to identify key areas of learning and development activity that will enable them to either acquire new or develop existing skills and behavioural attributes.

A group of roles that 'relate' to each other as they share some common or similar activities which can be performed to varying levels across a range of grades.