Competencies and skills

Competencies are the behaviours your organisation expects, such as communication or leadership. Skills are what people know how to do, such as a language or a piece of software. Both are rated on one proficiency scale. Each job role can expect competencies and require skills at a level, so reviews can rate people against what their role expects, and the skills matrix can show who falls short.

Who can manage the competency library, proficiency scale, role expectations and skills catalogue: Owner, HR admin.

Who can see the team skills matrix, find people by skill and validate skills: Owner, HR admin, Manager.

Everyone records their own skills. See Your skills.

Where to find it

• Settings → Competencies & skills, under Structure, with four tabs: Competency library, Proficiency scale, Role expectations and Skills catalogue.
• Skills in the Work menu: My skills, and for HR and managers the Team matrix and Find people.

The proficiency scale

One scale covers every competency and skill in the organisation, from the lowest level to the highest. Reviewers, managers and people rating themselves all read its labels.

The default scale has five levels: Foundational, Developing, Proficient, Advanced and Expert. It is a starting point.

1. Open Settings → Competencies & skills and choose the Proficiency scale tab.

2. Change each level’s label and add an optional Description. Use Add a level to add one. A scale has 2 to 10 levels.

3. Click Save scale, or Undo changes to start again.

Caution

Changing the labels changes how every recorded level reads. Review cycles already running keep the scale they started with.

The competency library

On the Competency library tab:

• Click Add the starter framework to add a generic, editable framework of core, leadership and functional competencies, each with behavioural indicators. It adds only what you do not already have.
• Click New competency to add your own. Give it a Name, a Category (choose one, or type a new one), an optional Description, and the Behavioural indicators: what the competency looks like at each level of the scale. Leave a level blank if it has none. Click Save.

Reviewers read the indicators when they rate a competency.

Archiving a competency removes it from role expectations. Review forms and review cycles already launched keep their copies. Turn on Show archived to see archived competencies.

The skills catalogue

The skills catalogue is the list of skills people record on their profile and managers validate.

• Click Add starter skills to add an editable starting list.
• Click New skill, enter the Name, a Category and an optional Description, and click Save.

The list shows how many People have each skill. An archived skill stays on the profiles of people who have it, and leaves role requirements.

Role expectations

What each job role expects and requires is set per role.

1. Choose the Role expectations tab.

2. Choose the Job role, then either every level of it or one Level.

3. On Expected competencies, set the level expected for each competency, and click Save expected competencies.

4. On Required skills, set the level required for each skill, and click Save required skills.

What you set for one level overrides the role-wide setting for people at that level. Job roles and their levels come from Settings → Job roles.

Competencies in reviews

A review form can include one Role competencies question. It rates each competency expected of the reviewee’s job role and level, on the proficiency scale. See Review forms.

• When the cycle launches, each reviewee’s expected competencies are frozen. Later changes to the framework, the role expectations or the person’s role change nothing in that cycle.
• Each reviewer rates each competency and can add evidence. A reviewee with no expected competencies has nothing to rate.
• The result shows, for each competency, the Expected level, each visible reviewer type’s average, the Assessed level and the Gap.
  • The assessed level is the manager’s rating, or where there is none, the average of the peer and upward ratings the viewer may see. The self-rating never counts.
  • Gap = assessed − expected. A level below what is expected shows with a minus sign.
• Anonymity works as it does for the rest of the review: an anonymous type below the minimum number of responses is withheld.

Do competencies count in the score?

Only if you say so. On the review cycle, Competencies’ share of the final score (%) sets their weight. 0, the default, rates competencies without counting them. With a share above 0, the final score blends the review, the KPI score and the competencies. See Review cycles.

The skills matrix

Everyone keeps their own skills under Skills → My skills: their level, whether they want to develop it, a note, and optional evidence such as a certificate from their own documents. My skills also shows gaps against what their role requires.

For HR and managers, the Team matrix tab shows people against skills: each person’s level, whether it is validated, whether they want to develop it, and whether they are below the level their role requires. HR sees every current employee; a manager sees their own reporting line.

Find people answers “who knows this skill at this level or above?” Choose the skill, the level (Any level or at least a level), and tick Validated only if you need a checked level.

Validate a skill

A person’s own level is self-assessed. A validated level is the one that counts in the matrix and against their role’s requirements.

1. Click the person’s name in the Team matrix or Find people to open their skill profile.

2. Click Validate on the skill.

3. Choose the Validated level. You can agree with theirs or set another. Add an optional Note.

4. Click Validate.

• A skill is validated by the person’s manager, or HR.
• Nobody validates their own skills.
• If the person changes their own level, the validation is cleared, and it needs validating again.

Related

• Review forms
• Review cycles
• Your skills