Applied Soft Computing 12 (2012) 860–871 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Applied Soft Computing j ourna l ho me p age: www.elsevier.com/l ocate/asoc Computing with words for hierarchical competency based selection of personnel in construction companies Siamak Safarzadegan Gilan ∗ , Mohammad Hassan Sebt, Vahid Shahhosseini Construction Engineering and Management, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran 15875-4413, Iran a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 9 April 2011 Received in revised form 17 September 2011 Accepted 6 October 2011 Available online 22 October 2011 Keywords: Computing with words (CWW) Perceptual computing Linguistic Weighted Average (LWA) Fuzzy multiple criteria decision making (FMCDM) Interval type-2 fuzzy set (IT2 FS) Competency Construction personnel a b s t r a c t As part of human resource management policies and practices, construction firms need to define compe- tency requirements for project staff, and recruit the necessary team for completion of project assignments. Traditionally, potential candidates are interviewed and the most qualified are selected. Applicable methodologies that could take various candidate competencies and inherent uncertainties of human evaluation into consideration and then pinpoint the most qualified person with a high degree of reli- ability would be beneficial. In the last decade, computing with words (CWW) has been the center of attention of many researchers for its intrinsic capability of dealing with linguistic, vague, interdepen- dent, and imprecise information under uncertain environments. This paper presents a CWW approach, based on the specific architecture of Perceptual Computer (Per-C) and the Linguistic Weighted Average (LWA), for competency based selection of human resources in construction firms. First, human resources are classified into two types of main personnel: project manager and engineer. Then, a hierarchical cri- teria structure for competency based evaluation of each main personnel category is established upon the available literature and survey. Finally, the perceptual computer approach is utilized to develop a practical model for competency based selection of personnel in construction companies. We believe that the proposed approach provides a useful tool to handle personnel selection problem in a more reliable and intelligent manner. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Human resource management (HRM) is defined as the processes that organize, manage and lead a project team [1]. It contributes to the success of the project [2,3] and creates a competitive advan- tage for the organization [4,5]. The HRM policies, processes, and practices in the construction company are in some way supportive of project-oriented working and are different from more tradi- tional HRM processes and practices [6], which are designed for the classically managed organization. While in classically managed organizations, the emphasis is not on projects but instead on rou- tine products and services where the job requirements are well defined and stable [7], in competency-based HRM, practices and policies are designed, developed and implemented based on per- sonnel competencies in order to support the integration of human resource management. The latter forms a solid basis, which unifies the different steps of human resource management. The project team is comprised of appropriate people with assigned roles and responsibilities for completing the project [1]. ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 912 317 9218; fax: +98 21 6640 1369. E-mail addresses: safarzadegan@aut.ac.ir (S. Safarzadegan Gilan), sebt@aut.ac.ir (M.H. Sebt), shahhosseini@aut.ac.ir (V. Shahhosseini). Project team members may also be referred to as the project staff or personnel [1,7]. Developing the project team improves the people skills, technical competencies, and overall team envi- ronment and project performance [8], which is a critical factor for project success [9,10]. Effective team development strategies and activities are expected to increase the team’s performance, which increases the likelihood of meeting project objectives [11]. The degree or extent of this impact may vary, depends on cer- tain factors such as project type, characteristic, and organizational context. If project team members do not possess required com- petencies, performance can be jeopardized [1]. Competency is the knowledge, skills, and behaviors a person needs to fulfill his or her role [12]. Assessing competencies, skills, and abilities, and know- ing personality traits and key behaviors of individuals increase the chances of choosing a team that has the potential to succeed [8]. Traditionally, an expert interviews the candidates for job posi- tions, and the best person is selected based on the capability analysis. The statistical techniques support the engaging decision through the arrangement of test scores and the measure of accom- plishment for the candidate [12]. However, the process is often ambiguous, biased, and lacking in accuracy [13]. In contrast, in competency-based selection procedure, overall competencies of personnel are evaluated by the competency framework established 1568-4946/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2011.10.004