MHRM 6902 Week 3 Analytical Aptitude Competency Map Example

Analytical Aptitude, Behavior by Behavior: A Competency Map That Tests One Leasing Agent Turnover Analysis Against Each Part of the Standard and Keeps the Partly Met Rating It Earned

Student Name

Walden University

MHRM 6902: Capstone: Meeting SHRM Competencies

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Analytical Aptitude, Behavior by Behavior: A Competency Map That Tests One Leasing Agent Turnover Analysis Against Each Part of the Standard and Keeps the Partly Met Rating It Earned

The Standard First

This map begins with the category and only then turns to my work. In the BASK edition the course assigns, Analytical Aptitude describes the knowledge and abilities needed to interpret and analyze information in order to make business decisions and recommendations, and it is broken into four sub-competencies: acting as an advocate for data, gathering data, analyzing data and making decisions grounded in evidence (Society for Human Resource Management [SHRM], 2022). Each sub-competency carries its own key behaviors. I paraphrase them here rather than quote them at length, and I give the edition so that anyone holding the same text can check the paraphrase line by line.

Starting from the standard matters because the alternative is so tempting. If I began with my turnover analysis and asked which category it belonged to, I would find myself describing Analytical Aptitude in words that happened to match what I did. Messick (1995) warned that an assessment's meaning depends on how well its content represents the whole construct, not just the parts that are easy to show; a portfolio map is a small assessment, and the same warning applies to it.

The Artifact

The artifact is a turnover analysis I completed in 2023 for leasing agents at Sorrel Ridge Residential. Regional managers had complained that new agents kept leaving, but no one knew whether the problem was company-wide. I pulled two years of hire and exit dates for every leasing agent from our payroll system, matched each departure to its community and the agent's length of service and grouped the results. Of 61 departures, 38 came within six months of hire, and 27 of those early exits were at the three largest communities, each with more than 300 units. I wrote a two-page brief for the regional managers proposing that new agents at those three sites shadow an experienced agent for two weeks before giving tours alone. Two of the three communities adopted the change the following spring.

The Map

Table 1

Analytical Aptitude Mapped Against the Leasing Agent Turnover Analysis

Composite generalist and organization. Sub-competency wording is paraphrased from the assigned edition; check it against the source before reuse.

Why Two Rows Rate Partly Met

The data gathering row rates partly met because the whole analysis rests on one payroll export. I did spot-check ten departures against personnel files and found the dates correct, but I never asked whether the export captured everyone. Agents placed through a staffing agency during the busy summer leasing season, for instance, never appear in payroll, and their exits would not show. Rynes et al. (2002) found that HR professionals often hold confident beliefs that research does not support, partly because practice rarely tests its own data. My analysis is an example of that pattern at small scale: I trusted the source because it was the one I had.

The evidence-based decision row also rates partly met. The brief names a pay increase as a possible alternative and rejects it in one sentence on cost grounds. Hom et al. (2017) describe turnover as having many causes, which means an analysis that tests only one explanation cannot claim to have weighed the alternatives. The shadowing recommendation may well have been right, but the brief does not show that I compared it fairly with anything else.

I considered rating both rows met and arguing that the standard's behaviors are broad enough to cover what I did. I decided against it. A map that rates everything met tells a reader that the author found what she was looking for, and a reader who sees two honest partial ratings is more likely to trust the two full ones.

What the Analysis Leaves Unproven

The analysis shows that I can organize existing records, find a pattern and present it to managers who then acted on it. Nothing in it shows me designing a study, collecting fresh data, test whether a change caused an improvement or use any statistical method beyond counts and percentages. Those limits matter for the portfolio. When the Week 8 draft makes its claim under Analytical Aptitude, the claim will be phrased as descriptive work with existing data, and the limit sentence will say so.

Next Step for This Category

The two partly met rows point to something I can still do this term without new employer permission: rerun the same analysis with the staffing agency's placement records, which the agency has offered to share in summary form. If the early-exit pattern holds with both sources, the data gathering row can move closer to met, and the revised brief becomes a stronger artifact than the original.

References

Hom, P. W., Lee, T. W., Shaw, J. D., & Hausknecht, J. P. (2017). One hundred years of employee turnover theory and research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3), 530-545. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000103

Messick, S. (1995). Validity of psychological assessment: Validation of inferences from persons' responses and performances as scientific inquiry into score meaning. American Psychologist, 50(9), 741-749. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.50.9.741

Rynes, S. L., Colbert, A. E., & Brown, K. G. (2002). HR professionals' beliefs about effective human resource practices: Correspondence between research and practice. Human Resource Management, 41(2), 149-174. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.10029

Society for Human Resource Management. (2022). SHRM body of applied skills and knowledge (SHRM BASK). https://www.shrm.org/credentials/certification/shrm-bask