This paper presents human resource managers with a tool to use in their organizations to help select and recruit geospatial technology professionals and determine professional development plans for cross training between 12 identified geospatial technology work roles. The Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM) was developed at the NASA-sponsored Geospatial Workforce Development Center (GeoWDC) at the University of Southern Mississippi. The GeoWDC is designed to be a first source of information for geospatial workforce training and development. Organizations can use the GTCM to describe the kinds of workers needed in the industry, improve employee recruitment; manage employee performance; and design training programs.
Research on the geospatial industry has consistently identified the lack of a qualified workforce as a primary requirement for this industry. In some instances, the inability to identify, locate, hire, and retain geospatial employees is the single most important challenge facing the geospatial industry today. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook (2002-2003 Edition) predicts that growth in such occupations as cartography, photogrammetry, and geography should increase 10%-20% between 2000 and 2010. In addition, the need for geospatial specialists and technicians in such fields as urban planning, civil engineering, and environmental science place a high demand on a well-trained geospatial workforce.
The need for a geospatial workforce is also not limited to one particular employment sector. Examination of the occupational profiles from the Occupational Outlook Handbook finds geospatial workforce needs in academic programs, commercial products and services, and governmental (federal, state, local, and tribal) support and decision-making requirements. This suggests that geospatial workforce needs apply across many diverse occupational segments, and is often embedded in many employment sector domains.
With this challenge in mind, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in conjunction with the Geospatial Workforce Development Center (GWDC) at the University of Southern Mississippi, recognized the need for a systematic and research-based tool to support the rapid growth of the geospatial workforce industry. Based upon extensive focus group participation and role expert validation, a competency-based model was deemed as the best workforce development and human resource management tool to assist geospatial organizations as they seek to create a qualified workforce.
The selection of a competency-based model for geospatial workforce development hinges on several advantages that these models have over traditional job classification or job analysis tools. These advantages include the ability to capture more general competencies associated with the roles that geospatial employees fill within their work environment and the ability to focus on effective work performance, not on specific tasks (Zemke & Zemke, 2000).
Using a traditional job analysis or classification system, knowledge skills and abilities are often examined at the task level, and are broken down into specific work requirements that can often change, depending upon organizational actions or technological innovation or deployment. Oftentimes, traditional job analysis techniques can become obsolete, since they are unable to successfully integrate the changing work performance requirements that become necessary, when technology or some other change agent is implemented. Additionally, competency models have been shown to be quite appropriate for technology-based organizations, since a great deal of these organizations are focused on technological innovation and creativity (Lucia & Lepsinger, 1999).
Competency models are built around the creation of an integrated model that is based upon key success factors (competencies) that are required for excellent performance in a particular work role. These models capture several components (role definitions, competencies, outputs, and quality requirements) of successful work performance. These components are discussed below.
When a workforce development professional builds a competency model, the determination of what is done in the workplace is looked at based upon the roles that an individual may fill over the course of their workplace responsibility. These are not job descriptive titles. For example, it is not uncommon for a geospatial applications engineer to be asked “What is your job?” and respond with “I am an applications developer.”. However, this employee’s work responsibilities are more than “applications development”. Often, the employee fills many different roles over the course of their typical day. Part of the day, they are perhaps managing others; at other points in time, they are providing advice, or making management level decisions that have little to do with applications development. Geospatial employees do more than work with GIS, remote sensing, or GPS. They have work requirements that require them to fill many different shoes, and wear many different hats. It is these “different hats” that constitute the roles that they fill.
Competencies represent the knowledge, skills, abilities, motives, and values required to accomplish a particular task or job within a particular work role. Additionally, they have been described as those behaviors that distinguish effective work performance from ineffective performance (Dalton, 1997). Competencies represent several different core behavioral or knowledge-based performance measures, and can cut across many different roles. For example, it is not uncommon for geospatial roles to have similar, cross-cutting competencies associated with those roles. Not surprisingly, those roles that depend upon interpersonal relationships have similar competencies associated with them.
When examining geospatial roles, outputs are the specific and unique deliverables associated with each role, and quality requirements are the specific requirements necessary for delivery of outputs. For example, geospatial employees who occupy the data acquisition role have outputs (deliverables) related to how they define a data acquisition dictionary or metadata, and quality requirements (such as whether the metadata is comprehensive and accurate) associated with that output. For each role, outputs are uniquely associated with that role, but not surprisingly, quality requirements (such as accuracy or timeliness) may be similar across roles.
Using a research process and design developed by McLagan and Suhadolnik (1989), geospatial subject matter role experts verified and validated a competency model focused exclusively on the geospatial industry and its workforce. This process was conducted in a systematic way, and yielded several results, to include: a) a geospatial industry definition; b) future forces and ethical challenges; c) geospatial roles, outputs, and quality requirements; and d) competencies associated with each geospatial role (Gaudet, Annulis, & Carr, 2001).
Twelve distinct roles were identified for the geospatial technology industry: (1) Applications Development; (2) Data Acquisition; (3) Data Analysis and Interpretation; (4) Data Management; (5) Management; (6) Marketing; (7) Project Management; (8) Systems Analysis; (9) Systems Management; (10) Training; (11) Visualization; and (12) Coordination. Four categories of geospatial technology competencies were identified as the required knowledge, skills, and abilities to function in each of the twelve roles: (1) technical; (2) business; (3) analytical; and (4) interpersonal. The results of the study included the development of twelve role profiles for the geospatial industry that provide: (1) role definitions; (2) role outputs and quality requirements; (3) competency requirements for the performance of the outputs; (4) the level of expertise required for each competency required to function in a specific role; and (5) the ethical challenges that may face an individual for the work role. For a full report of the Geospatial Technology Competency Model results, visit http://www.geowdc.edu/.
The GTCM was designed to be used as a method to capture existing workforce needs and requirements, as well as a tool that can be implemented within individual geospatial organizations. Implementation of the GTCM within an organization can include the application of a competency approach in recruitment and selection of potential geospatial employees, or as a guide to geospatial employee career development.
Using the GTCM, geospatial roles can be identified within a particular organization, and the associated competencies can be linked to those roles. As a recruitment assessment tool, human resource professionals can use the GTCM to ascertain not only the presence or absence of a needed competency, but also help determine the applicant’s necessary expertise that adequately demonstrates a particular competency. For example, an organization may need employees to serve in the applications development role, and can use the GTCM to determine the employees knowledge, skills, and abilities required to fulfill that role, and the degree to which the job applicants can demonstrate the necessary competencies. Organizations can also provide potential job applicants a listing of the competencies desired in position announcements, as well as the expected outputs associated with those roles. Using established or validated selection tools built around the GTCM competencies, organizations can select applicants who best fit, and thus enable their organization to create a geospatial workforce best suited to their own needs.
In addition to using the GTCM model as a recruitment and selection tool, geospatial job incumbents can use the GTCM competency model as a mechanism to understand career development. For example, an individual can “grade” themselves in terms of their own current skills and abilities, and based upon their responses, understand the necessary competencies required for other roles. In instances where they recognize a “gap” in current skills, versus needed skills, they can seek out training to build upon skills that are required for the future. Organizations that adopt this approach will find that such activities as training and development can occur in a systematic way, with employees moving towards skill-building that is needed for future roles, as opposed to engaging in training in a happenstance or as needed basis.
The development and implementation of the GTCM model can provide organizations with a structured approach to the recruitment, selection, and training of their workforce. This approach has great merit, for it is through the development of a qualified geospatial workforce that organizations will gain competitive advantage. Given the constraints placed on finding a qualified workforce, geospatial organizations should consider implementation of the GTCM model as a means to help gain that advantage.
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