Episode 44: Why Your Competency Framework Never Makes It Into Reviews

Emre (00:05.678)
The nice thing about role families is that proficiency levels do the work that title level mapping was trying to do. A senior PM and an associate PM both get rated on stakeholder management, but the associate is rated at the proficiency level for their stage, and the senior at the advanced level.

Emre (00:30.158)
Step two, and this one is the step two, and this is the one that does most of the work. Write behavioral indicators at each proficiency level. As we discussed earlier, and as Anne Mellinger pointed out in another episode, values, competencies, behaviors, and that is what you rate in the performance review, right? So a behavioral indicator is a specific action or output a manager can witness.

The test straight out.

Emre (01:05.57)
The behavioral indicator is a specific action or output a manager can witness. If two managers watch the same person do the same work, would they land on the same rating using only the indicator? If the answer is no, then your indicator is.

A behavioral indicator is a SIP. A behavioral indicator is a specific action or output a manager can witness. But what actually makes a good behavioral indicator? Well, here's an easy way to test it. If two managers watch the same person do the same work, would they land on the same rating using only the indicator? If the answer is no, then the indicator might be too vague.

Emre (02:01.581)
So let's make this a bit more concrete. Because it's so let's make this a bit more concrete. Take ownership for a product manager, for example. The vague version reads something like takes initiative and drives outcomes, holds self and others accountable, demonstrates a bias for action, yada yada yada. You can't rate that. A manager reading it has no way to tell a developing PM that.

For example, let's

For example, let's talk about a product manager, and the competency is they take ownership, right? The vague version reads something like takes initiative and drives outcomes, holds themselves and others accountable, right? So on and so forth. You can't rate that. A manager reading it has no way to tell a developing PM from an advanced one, because it describes a posture and not an action. But here's the same competency written with real proficiency levels.

Developing level

So here's the same competency written with real proficiency levels. At the developing level, we say owns delivery on assigned features, flags risks to their manager, when timelines shift, and updates stakeholders on progress without being asked. So at a proficient level, it might be owns the roadmap for a defined product area, negotiates scope and timeline directly with engineering and design, and surfaces cross-steam dependencies before they turn into blockers.

Emre (03:38.39)
You can already tell the difference, right? And at an advanced level, it could be owns outcomes across several product areas, resolves cross-functional conflicts without escalating them, and reframes priorities when the underlying assumptions change. So right now we can see that okay, these are actions we can track.

Emre (04:08.223)
And easy. So a few

Emre (04:16.961)
So a few rules when you're drafting these actions or behavioral indicators, right? Lead every indicator with a verb. Owns, surfaces, negotiates, resolves, because verbs force specificity in a way adjectives never will. Cut anything that describes how a person feels or what kind of a person they are. And drop relative language. More effectively than others is not something you can anchor to. Resolves conflicts without escalation, is.

If you're starting from a blank page, the method to use is the critical incident technique. Pull the people who know each role best and ask them to describe specific moments when someone did the competency exceptionally well or badly. When group. Then group those stories and turn them into your behavioral statements.

Emre (05:13.907)
And the last step would be connecting each competency to an actual section in the review form. This is where most frameworks die and the fix is more.

This Step 3: Connect each competency to an actual section in the performance review form. And this is where most competency frameworks actually dissolve. And the fix to this is more structural. Every mapped competency should show up as its own named section on the review form. The section head

Emre (05:50.924)
You can do this multiple different ways. You can even devote a section of the performance. Step three: connect each competency to an actual section in the performance review. And this is where most competency frameworks actually dissolve. And the way to fix it is more structural. Make sure you have

Emre (06:21.303)
So there are different ways you can go about this. You can actually devote one specific section to role-related competencies and have all your competency-related review questions on that section. And that would have, you know, all the competencies about the role just lined down one after the other. Or you could devote a section to each specific competency. So you so you would have the title of that section.

So you would have the competency itself as the title of that section, and then you would have the questions under it related to that specific competency. It all depends on how deep and granular and detailed you want to get.

Emre (07:09.834)
Now the real

Emre (07:17.803)
Now, the real kicker here is if you're running like Excel, now the real problem here is if you're conducting your performance reviews through PDFs or Excel spreadsheets, then it's gonna be very difficult to customize it and adapt it to make to have all your competencies and competency related questions in the actual review.

Emre (07:49.354)
And this is where Team Flect comes in. Because as an all-in-one performance management platform built right into Microsoft Teams, Team Flect has all of these features. Team Flect has competency frameworks built into the app as well as performance reviews. And when you're conducting a performance review inside Team Flect, you always have the option to include the competencies in said review.

This way, the performance review template that you're using automatically pulls that individual's role-related competencies and adds it inside the performance review.

Emre (08:28.881)
So you don't have to run around. So you don't have to run around chasing one spreadsheet and so you don't have to go around tweaking spreadsheets for different roles. Everyone's so you don't have to run around tweaking spreadsheets and templates for each specific role. The competencies associated with an individual show up in their reviews done.

Emre (09:03.959)
So if you want to learn more about TeamFleck, the highest rated performance review software inside the Microsoft Teams. So if you want to learn more about how so if you want to learn more about TeamFlecked or tried for. So if you want to learn more about the highest rated performance management software in the Microsoft ecosystem, TeamFlecked, you can always click the link in the description to learn more about Team.

Emre (09:29.869)
So if you want to learn more about the highest rated performance review software in the Microsoft ecosystem, TMFleck, you can always click the link in the description. Now, before we wrap this one up, I wanna focus a bit on the rating scales, because even teams that get the role mapping and competency frameworks right might sync the whole thing with a bad rating scale.

The default in most HRS systems is a 1 to 5 num. The default in most HRS systems is a 1 to 5 numeric scale scale, with labels like below expectations, meets expectations, exceed expectations, so on and so forth. It's the path of least resistance and it's

It's the path of least resistance, but it might be the wrong tool for rating competencies.

Emre (10:31.403)
One of the reasons the 1 to 5 might be wrong for competencies is the central tendency. Managers cluster everyone around the middle to avoid extremes. So 70 to 80% of your people land on the meets expectations, which carries almost no value or information. The second is what without The second is that without behavioral anchors, a four out of five means whatever each manager privately decides it means.

And the third is that bare number

And the third is that having a simple number invites comparison that data can't support, because every one of those managers calibrated privately. The fix has been around since 1963, when two researchers named Smith and Kendall published it. It's called behaviorally anchored rating scales, or bars, and the idea is to tie each point on the scale to a specific observable behavior.

Emre (11:52.14)
Now, the real question is, what does all of this get you? What changes when you build these frameworks properly?

Emre (12:08.557)
So what does all of this get you? What changes when you do competency mapping properly and competencies actually show up as a part of the review cycle? Well for managers the review turns into more of a recognition.

Emre (12:37.933)
So, what happens when you do competency mapping right? What does all of this get you? Well, when it's done right, the effect shows up across the entire talent cycle. So when competencies are connected to performance reviews themselves, the managers actually know what to look for, know what to evaluate, and recognition is easier for them, right? And for employees, the framework itself becomes legible. The competency definitions and the proficiency anchors

Live in the same place as their goals and their reviews. So they can see it at any time and they can see what those competencies actually mean. And for HR, they finally get the data that supports the decisions. And for HR. And for HR, they finally get the data that supports the decisions.

Emre (13:34.303)
And for HR And for HR, well, they're finally getting some proper data that supports their strategic decisions. Compensation reviews have ratings that are comparable across teams, and talent reviews can find your high potential people against consistent

Emre (13:56.696)
Compensation reviews now can have ratings that Compensation reviews can actually now have ratings that are comparable across different teams. And talent reviews now are

In compensation reviews, they actually have ratings comparable across different teams. And in talent reviews, they can now spot high performance and high potential employees much easier. So if you take one thing from this episode, let it be this: almost every company I talk to already has a competency framework. The framework is the easy part. The work that pays off is mapping it, and that gets

Emre (14:39.873)
So if you take one thing from this episode, let it be this. Almost every company I talk to already has a competency framework. The framework is the easy part, the actual difficult part, but the part that actually does the most benefit to employees, HR, and managers alike, is mapping it across different rating scales and actually mapping it across the performance review.

Emre (15:15.883)
Role families, behavioral anchors, a section per competency, and a rating skill that is simple

Emre (15:25.801)
All you need are role families, behavioral anchors, a section for competencies in performance reviews, and the rating scale that is simple enough to hold in your head. Get those in place and your next review cycle produces the data that you can actually use in your strategy. Well, that about wraps it up for this episode.

Emre (15:49.921)
But that about well, that about wraps it up for this episode. If you're listening to us on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you find podcasts, leave us a like, subscribe, it really helps the show out. And once again, if you want to try the highest rated performance review software in the Microsoft ecosystem, Team Flick for absolutely free, you can always click the link in the description. This has been the Team Check-in, and I've been your host, Emre. Bye-bye.