Evaluating Performance
Performance management is one of the key pillars of a successful organization. Delivering useful feedback to employees and hearing about the individual experience within your company can help your team resolve roadblocks, develop new skills, and work better as a unit.
Performance reviews must walk a fine line between qualitative and quantitative data. While quantitative data is important in that it provides concrete key metrics to evaluate employees, qualitative data provides insight to employee experience and skill. Competencies can help you walk this line between data types, and can make qualitative data more quantifiable.
What Are Competencies?
Competencies are the skills or abilities that are needed in order to properly fulfill all the duties associated with a certain role. The assisting skills and the competencies of an employee will be based on the role that he or she plays in the department, or based on the experience and the level of seniority they have attained.
Here are some examples of competencies, and their definition:
| Competency | Definition |
|---|---|
| Team Player | Employee works as a member of a team with a cooperative attitude; they are willing to listen and share ideas |
| Technical Skills | Employee demonstrates a full understanding of our platform and can perform all tasks in the software |
| Leadership Ability | Employee takes the initiative and works with motivation; they are a strong and positive team member. |
Some competencies can apply to multiple roles. For example, the ability to communicate or the ability to communicate or collaborate with team members are competencies that are needed at all levels of a company and in all departments.
However, while an Engineering Project Manager needs a comprehensive technical understanding of products such as Jira, a Marketing Content Manager would not need the same competency. Instead, they should be rated on skills needed and related to their role.
Performance Management in Profit.co
In Profit.co’s performance management module, human resources administrators can initiate performance reviews. These reviews are completely customizable and give HR the ability to customize reviews according to the company, industry, department, and even individual employees they are reviewing.
One of the many features of Profit.co’s performance reviews are competencies.
HR Administrators in the Profit.co software can add an unlimited amount of competencies for reviews. Additionally, users can create competency groups to collect associated competencies into sections. These groups can be enabled as needed, for easier review customization so that you can get the most out of your performance reviews.
Enabled competencies are rated by managers, the reviewed employee, and any peers that have been added on a sliding scale according to the provided definition.
Competency Levels
Competency levels in the Profit.co performance management module are used on a rating scale in order to measure each competency. During a performance review, a scale of competency levels appears next to a given competency, and the reviewer indicates the level they believe best matches the reviewed employee’s ability to fulfill that competency.
Traditional rating scales are usually set on a five-point scale ranging from “Unsatisfactory” to “Exceeds Expectations”. However, Super Users in Profit.co can customize these scales to meet their exact specifications, and create different ratings scale groups that they can enable and disable with ease.
So, if a Super User wanted to create a more detailed ten-point scale, or even a simple three-point scale, they can do so and collect the competency level of employees for all designated skills under any terms they would like.
Competencies in Profit.co
Profit.co has automatically added a few competency groups that many organizations will find useful.
Because competencies are considered the guiding star of an employee’s performance, performance competencies are the values you and your company have selected as the most integral skills or characteristics an employee must possess in order to effectively do their job.
When looking to hire a new employee, competencies are the standards on which you base your assessment of the interviewee. Questions you might consider when hiring someone: Do they match our core focus? Could we improve their skills to suit our business with training?
When evaluating current employees as a review, competencies can help you understand how well they are working within the company and help focus training or efforts for improvement.
Defining the right competencies for each and every employee or job position requires some time and effort. A good approach to identifying the right competencies to evaluate is to consider an employee’s job responsibilities, your own expectations based on the employee’s previous performance, and finally what skills you see lacking.
By covering these three areas in a performance appraisal, employees can reaffirm their understanding of their role, build on past progress, and identify areas of improvement to focus on in the next review period.
To help get you started on the relevant competencies you need to properly evaluate your team members, Profit.co comes pre-loaded with 17 competencies for your use! These competencies are applicable to any number of industries, positions, and seniority levels. Easily edit these competencies to better fit your company’s values and expectations, or disable them using the toggle.
Competency Group Examples
Following are some examples of potential Competency Groups and their associated Competencies that you might find useful for your own organization!
1. All Managers
| Competency | Definition |
|---|---|
| Leadership Ability | Initiates innovative ideas, motivates and empowers direct reports to develop their skills and deliver high-quality work |
| Problem Solving | Calmly considers and resolves problems with reasoning and critical thinking |
| Communication/td> | Efficiently and respectfully communicates with all team members and enables swift progress |
| Team Building/td> | Demonstrates the ability to help individuals develop in tandem with the team’s goals and the company’s mission |
2. Sales Representative
| Competency | Definition |
|---|---|
| Customer Focus | Demonstrates a customer-centric business communication style that elevates customer experience |
| Self-Management | Demonstrates the ability to stay organized and work independently by managing time and responsibilities |
| Problem Solving | Calmly considers and resolves complex problems with reason, order, and critical thinking |
| Interpersonal Skills | Respectfully and warmly interacts with customers and team members to reflect the best qualities of the business |
3. Customer Success Coordinator
| Competency | Definition |
|---|---|
| Customer Focus | Demonstrates a customer-centric outlook and makes the customer journey successful and satisfactory |
| Interpersonal Skills | Confidently & respectfully interacts with customers and tackles customer needs and demands effectively |
| Conflict Management | Expertly handles tense situations, de-escalates and resolves conflict professionally and patiently |
| Relationship Management | Maintains an ongoing level of engagement with customer; consistently checks in with them and meets needs |
4. Project Manager
| Competency | Definition |
|---|---|
| Decision-Making | Employee works as a member of a team with a cooperative attitude; they are willing to listen and share ideas |
| Communication | Employee demonstrates a full understanding of our platform and can perform all tasks in the software |
| Strategy Development | Employee takes the initiative and works with motivation; they are a strong and positive team member. |
| Critical Thinking | Analyzes and evaluates complex issues by staying rational, skeptical and unbiased |
5. Financial Analyst
| Competency | Definition |
|---|---|
| Problem-Solving | Seeks solutions for complex financial issues in an orderly manner both independently and in collaboration with others |
| Technical Skills | Demonstrates expert understanding of all platforms used in position, completes all technical tasks efficiently |
| Critical Thinking | Analyzes and evaluates projects and issues, staying rational, skeptical, and unbiased |
| Communication | Maintains relevant and respectful communication with the business audience |
Final Thoughts
Profit.co offers customizable competencies and competency groups to facilitate tailored performance reviews for organizations. This allows managers and HR administrators to gain a comprehensive understanding of their team’s skill sets, focus areas for development, and track employee growth over time. Consistent evaluation of employees based on the same competencies across multiple review periods enables better identification of promising talent and aids in the development of underperforming team members. With the Profit.co performance management module, organizations can create review processes that provide the most relevant information on their team’s performance.
To find out more about this powerful module, visit our performance management product page. Book a free demo with our product experts to see how you can use Profit.co in your organization, or try us completely free for 30 days!