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re: wonder if anyone has been through an exercise like this and created a
list of measurable skills ...
Your list is a good start, but I believe it should include something about
associates having an understanding of the products or services about which
your group writes. (Or ability to learn--hopefully being hired does not
automatically confer tenure.) I suggest you should look for writers that,
when dealing with the SME, can at some point "take it from here" and can
know when to suggest improvements to the product or process. Otherwise,
you're secretaries.
Along with your list, your group should consider common procedures. Since
you see the need to have a "group," it would be nice if anyone could fill in
for anyone else and recognize what's happening during illness, vacation,
parental leave, etc.
And, your list of ways to make yourself better and get organized should also
detail what is expected of the supervisor. Heaven help you if your group is
like what many of us are afflicted with, i.e., promotion to supervision is
equivalent to semiretirement.
As part of making the core competencies list, it should be useful to
indicate milestones or schedules for achieving them. That is, your process
should be combined with the performance assessment process and include steps
for addressing poor performance. It will be a challenge to accomplish this
while not making it a personality test.
I suggest that listing core competencies of associates is a futile exercise
without both having common procedures and knowing what is expected of the
supervisor and incorporating performance assessment. (You didn't say you
weren't, of course.) Most of all, don't overdo it. If associates can't
operate without lots and lots of rules, you're hiring the wrong writers.
No, I wasn't one of the Powerball winners, but I know some. Would have
hated to have to give up technical writing.
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