Performance-Based Certification

How to Design a Valid, Defensible, Cost-Effective Program

Judith Hale

• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781118027240
• eBook ISBN: 9781118176269
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Are your employees qualified? Looking for qualified people to do competent work? How do you ensure that the people you hire can do the job right? An ever-increasing number of organizations are asking the same questions. Certification planning is the answer and Performance-Based Certification is the key. This is the only book on the market that addresses the growing need to monitor the qualifications of employees. You'll be able to quickly customize the certification tests and other job aids provided on the accompanying disk. Create a certification program within your organization to:

• Instill confidence that employees, members, or suppliers are qualified to meet the needs of your customers
• Ensure that your workforce is trained and competent to their job
• Make your hiring process more cost effective and legally defendable
• Recognize competence and consistency of your employees

Once you've identified the need for a certification program, what's the next step? All of the answers are here!

Chapter 1

The Driver

Some certifications are created in response to an event, such as a lawsuit or the loss of a major customer. Others are implemented to gain a competitive advantage or to prevent employee disputes by helping managers make better personnel decisions. Many certification programs are the result of external pressures on organizations to ensure that their people perform to standard. It’s important to be clear and in agreement on just what the driver is, because the driver is the platform on which everything else is based. The driver shapes the program’s design and determines the requirements candidates must satisfy to earn the credential. The design, in turn, determines what the program will cost to implement and maintain. The driver also provides the criteria against which the program will be evaluated and updated. Agreement on the driver should result in three outputs: (1) a clear goal statement, (2) the measures that will be used to judge the effectiveness of the program, and (3) agreement on the target audience and stakeholders.

One of your first tasks in designing a certification program, then, is to find out whether there is a valid driver—a problem worth solving—for it and if a certification program or another type of credential is indeed the appropriate solution. Based on that information, you can design the credential so that it will fulfill stakeholder expectations. Once the program is designed, you can plan how it will be managed, marketed, and implemented so that it will continue to add value to the organization.

WHY ORGANIZATIONS CERTIFY

In the past, most certifications were developed by professional societies and certifying boards to protect the safety, health, and welfare of the public. This is still a main driver for many professional societies, such as credentials offered by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals, the American Board of Industrial Hygiene, and the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics.¹ Today, in addition to protecting the public, professional associations develop certifications to attract members, to help certificants be competitive in the marketplace, to encourage participation in their educational programs, to pressure academic institutions to tailor programs for their constituents, to counter regulatory pressures for licensure that may restrict practice, and to drive universal standards. However, some certifications are created just because there is a market for them—that is, there are enough people who will seek the designation that it becomes profitable for an organization to offer it. Indeed, the driver behind most certifications is economic, whether this fact is stated or not.

Corporations’ rationale for credentialing is different from that of professional societies. Corporations implement certifications to demonstrate due diligence to stakeholders, to promote continuous improvement, to increase productivity, and to maintain employee skills and knowledge. Businesses want to leverage their investments in research and development and in training and technology, and they want to reduce or avoid unnecessary costs. As a result, more organizations are turning to certification programs as a way to help them compete for and retain competent staff; establish uniform performance standards so they can rapidly deploy workers; outsource work to capable contractors and third-party providers; raise the level of core competencies across the organization; apply a multi-disciplined approach to solving complex problems; better integrate products, supply chains, and processes; and comply with local and international regulations. The following paragraphs discuss these goals in greater detail.

Protecting the Public

Protecting the public is still a primary reason organizations affiliated with the healthcare and medical fields either offer or require certifications, for example:

• The province of Ontario, Canada, certifies approximately 80,000 servers of alcohol annually through its Smart Serve Ontario program, established jointly by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and the hospitality industry in that province. The goals are to reduce accidents due to over-consumption of alcohol and reduce servers’ liability through responsible alcohol service.
• The National Restaurant Association’s Education Foundation offers a similar credential called ServSafe Alcohol^® for servers and bartenders in the United States and another credential called the ServSafe^® Food Protection Manager Certification for workers in restaurants, cafeterias, and other food service providers.
• Health Communication, Inc., offers the TIPS (Training for Intervention ProcedureS) certification. This organization trains servers, sellers, and consumers of alcohol on how to prevent intoxication, drunk driving, and underage drinking.

All three of these organizations provide training to promote responsible service, sale, and consumption of alcohol. Their certifications require passing a test for which the questions were derived from a job/task analysis. The evidence of effectiveness will depend on the number of incidents of “over” service that resulted in accidents or incidents that threatened people’s safety; the number of lawsuits establishments were able to counter because of the certifications, the impact on liability insurance premiums, and the confidence level of the insurance industry and Ontario the Gaming and Alcohol Commission.

Reinforcing Professional Stature and Promoting Universal Standards

Medical boards and associations are particularly interested in promoting universal standards as a way to establish the legitimacy of a medical specialty.

• The American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery² (ABOMS), certifies oral and maxillofacial surgeons. It is recognized by the American Dental Association, Council on Dental Education and Licensure, as one of the nine dental specialty certifying boards. The legitimacy of its certification is acknowledged by many hospital staff, medical licensing and accrediting agencies, and third party insurers. The Mission of the American Board of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery is to help set the standards for the confluence of education, training, and experience for the specialty of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery to assure the public of an acceptable level of attainment by those who are “Board Certified.” To this end the Board’s mission includes examination and certification of candidates, and recertification of Diplomates. The program’s effectiveness measures include the number of dentists seeking and successfully earning the certification; the number of dentists who maintain the credential; the number of hospitals, licensing boards, and accrediting agencies recognizing the credential; the impact on liability insurance premiums; the continued confidence of the American Dental Association and the Council on Dental Education and Licensure.
• The Board of Registered Polysomnographic Technologists, Inc.³ (BRPT), certifies technicians who work in sleep disorder clinics. The BRPT administers the Registered Polysomnographic Technologist (RPSGT) and the Certified Polysomnographic Technician (CPSGT) exams. This is a newly evolving field, and educational programs are beginning to address the need for competence in multiple disciplines related to the study of sleep disorders, specifically respiratory care and neurodiagnostics. The board wants the professionals who conduct sleep disorder studies and the clinics that hire them to understand the legitimate need for cross-discipline training. The board also wants to distinguish professionals who are qualified to conduct sleep disorder studies from professionals trained only in a single discipline. The BRPT fosters ethical practices and requires the continued competence of those who successfully complete the RPSGT and the CPSGT exams. Its vision is to set the professional standard worldwide for the credentialing of technologists and technicians in the field of sleep medicine. The program’s effectiveness measures include the number of hospitals and clinics that recognize the credential and give preferential treatment when hiring to technicians with the certification.

Preparing People for Jobs Requiring Competence in Multiple Disciplines

A major driver behind the increase in credentialing is the growing complexity of jobs. It is a rare job that has been untouched by advances in technology, specifically electronics and computing. Jobs have also become increasingly complex due to changes in legislation and local codes, advances in science, and the adoption of quality principles, specifically self-directed teams, the focus on streamlining work processes, and being data driven. One consequence is employers’ demand for multi-skilled workers because many jobs require people to be competent in more than one area or knowledgeable about more than one discipline (due partly to an increasing need for an interdisciplinary approach to solving problems in business). Therefore, for many employees, companies are requiring either cross-training or additional training in new areas. In addition, organizations are providing new development pathways to certify people whose jobs require these multi-disciplined competencies.

Here are some examples:

• A major research facility hires scientists and engineers to manage complex research projects on behalf of the defense industry. It has found that as projects become more complex the scientists’ and engineers’ ability to bring the project in on time and within budget fails. It decided to develop a program to certify its scientists and engineers in the management of what they classify as Type II and Type III projects. Type II projects are characterized as quasi-experimental in that the task is to test out a hypothesis that may require modifying procedures. Type III projects are described as ones for which the goal is clear but the procedures are lacking and need to be developed. The certification program’s effectiveness measures are the frequency Type II and Type III projects are carried out within the given timeframe and budget, and either answer the research question or establish a set of procedures that can be replicated for future projects.
• A manufacturer of equipment for the defense and nuclear industries decided to certify its buyers at two levels, tactical and strategic. The drivers behind the decision to certify were the increasing complexity of the supply chain and the recognition that buying decisions affected the efficiency and integrity of the supply chain; the increase in costs due to products not meeting specifications; the need for buyers to better manage risks and assess suppliers’ ability to withstand environmental and political threats; and the desire for buyers to be commodity experts so they are better able to take advantage of market variables. The program’s effectiveness is measured in cost savings, product quality; supplier consistency; and management confidence.

Protecting Jobs and Enhancing Professional Stature

Another driver is pressure on associations to prevent job loss due to encroachment of other disciplines because the required skills cross disciplines or to ensure the competency of members. For example:

• The National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) joined with the Center for Environmental Innovation in Roofing (Center) to form Roof Integrated Solar Energy, Inc. (RISE) to evaluate and certify solar roofing professionals. RISE certifies roofers who manage the installation of roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) systems, also known as rooftop solar energy systems. The driver behind the credential is to ensure roofing contractors and workers maintain a key role in roof-mounted PV installations. When roof-mounted solar energy systems were introduced in the marketplace, building owners typically contracted with electricians or solar integrators to do the installation. Over time it was shown that these installers—being unfamiliar with roof system technologies and applications—were damaging roof systems, voiding warranties, and causing roof leaks. Building owners were suffering significant consequences from having unqualified personnel working on their roofs. NRCA also noted that a few states had already adopted legislation requiring licensed electricians to do this work. In response, NRCA decided to develop a certification and a training curriculum. The NRCA’s position was that, given a proposed rooftop photovoltaic system design, the solar roof professional will apply essential knowledge, skills, and abilities to advise estimators, contractors, and sales professionals, and plan, coordinate, and supervise the installation of a low-slope or steep-slope rooftop photovoltaic system that complies with applicable codes, standards, and regulatory requirements; maintains the weatherproofin...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About Pfeiffer
• FREE Premium Content
• Title page
• Copyright page
• List of Tables, Figures, and Exhibits
• Contents of the Website
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Driver
• Chapter 2 The Business Case
• Chapter 3 The Requirements
• Chapter 4 The Standards
• Chapter 5 Assessment
• Chapter 6 Governance and Administration
• Chapter 7 Recertification and Maintenance
• Chapter 8 Implementation
• Chapter 9 Going Global
• Chapter 10 Evaluation
• Index
• About the Author