The rise of global interest in the use of competencies has coincided with the recognition, in both public and private sectors, that people are the most valuable assets of any organization. The concept of people as valued assets reinforces the correlation between staff and the success of an organization. In order for the organization to succeed, it has to ensure that all levels of staff have the necessary abilities to maintain success. Success is often maintained by focussing on the efforts of people, within a competitive environment.

One approach to managing employees that takes into consideration their efforts, as well as the behaviours that influence those efforts, is a competency-based management system. A competency-based management system provides a process whereby competencies needed to achieve organizational success are clearly defined. The system clearly defines what is expected out of managers and employees. The system can also be used to integrate several human resources functions.

The model can be used as the basis for executive development, recruitment, selection, compensation, performance appraisal, career development, job design, and organization design. In its crudest form, it is a yardstick for measuring how someone is performing, comparing current performance to an ideal, and suggesting actions that can be taken to improve that performance. What makes the competency model concept work is its simplicity, the prevailing conditions in the company that provide a fertile bed in which it can grow, managers believing in it, and employees accepting it.

Competencies have sustained global interest in the last decade. Many organizations have conducted competency studies to identify those competencies that are needed to make the organization successful. While there are different approaches to competencies, one of the most commonly applied approaches is that in which competencies are used to focus on the people doing the job, that is, their knowledge, skills and attitudes required to do a job successfully, rather than the work itself. This means that cognitive(knowing), behavioural and affective (feeling) factors are all at work in a competency.