With a new appreciation for the value of their employees, many organizations are moving rapidly to embrace Competency-Based Management, a relatively new approach to human resource management. Competency-Based Management involves the management of key HR activities such as staffing, learning and performance management, around a competency profile for the work to be carried out. This article describes how Service Canada, a key service delivery agency within the Canadian Federal Public Service, was able to bridge the two worlds of job analysis and competency modeling in order to successfully implement a working competency framework in a large unionized organization.

Examines how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) successfully implemented a tailor‐made Human Resources (HR) management regime with fresh definitions of competences for the new Integrated Market Enforcement Teams (IMETs). Explains that the intention was to increase competences for investigation of white‐collar crime in the wake of corporate scandals in the USA, and thus to restore investor confidence in Canada’s capital market. Details the IMET pilot project, including selection of personnel from the RCMP for the six IMETs. Concludes that the new HR regime clearly has the ability to change how people are managed in the investigation field.