Employee Core Competencies as an HR Tool

Competency-based assessments are not a new innovation or trend but an overall good practice to adopt. Employee competency assessments have been around long enough to have withstood the test of time and have proven to be a very useful tool for the HR professional’s toolbox. Employee competencies are a list of skills and behaviors that are specific and well defined and are used to lay out an organisation’s performance expectations for a job or the organisation’s culture as a whole. There are many resources out there for the HR professional to help them develop and customise a list of competencies their organisation can call their own [1].

Employee competencies can be used in a variety of ways. They can be integrated into performance appraisals, hiring practices, succession planning, as well as on-boarding orientations and other forms of employee communication. Competencies are a way to address both the technical skills of a job and the more difficult-to-define behavioral expectations of a job – sometimes referred to as the “soft skills.” But, there is nothing soft about these skills and a well-defined set of competencies can help an organisation better evaluate and measure employee performance.

Competency Skill Checklist [2]

The actual number of competencies an organisation may choose to use varies widely from one organisation to the next, but a good rule is between 10 and 20. Some examples of competencies organisations might use would be:

1. Business acumen
2. Emotional stability
3. Interaction with others
4. Problem solving
5. Use of software tools
6. Work ethic

Notice that they are a combination of both skills such as “Business Acumen” and “Use of Software Tools” and behaviors such as “Emotional Stability” and “Work Ethic.” How the employee competency is defined should be determined by how each organisation chooses to define it to fit their current work culture or the way they want it to be.

Competency Development: Building the Skills Needed for Success

1. Tailor training resources to the needs of your staff. Before you adopt a training program to bolster existing skills sets and build new ones, you’ll need to have a strong understanding of current employee benchmarks. Managers should know exactly how well-equipped their teams are for certain tasks. They should also know where employees are headed, and what they need in order to get there. Goal setting starts with the annual review process, and meaningful reviews start with solid metrics, excellent record maintenance, and sophisticated review software. Can your software track employee progress across multiple metrics from year to year? If not, it’s time to switch to emPerform.

2. When it comes to training programs, discriminate carefully. Not all training modules are created equal. Once you know what your employees need, do some research and find the training resources that work for your business model, your culture, and your environment. Some modules may seem like they fit the mark, but look closer. Don’t waste budget resources on a program your employees can’t use or won’t retain.

3. Allow your employees to guide the process. Keep communication channels open and encourage managers to do the same. That way you’ll be prepared when employees request specific training and educational resources that can help them meet their personal career goals.

4. Set clear expectations and document progress. Automated solutions, such as emPerform, allow employees and managers to create competency development plans, set expectations, track progress and monitor results. Having a platform for properly documenting competency development not only keeps employees on track, but it sets clear performance goals for employees to follow and gives managers the tools needed to monitor and assess results.

[2] Payscale.com ‘Employee Competency Checklist’ http://blogs.payscale.com/compensation/2010/01/employee-competency-checklist.html

Keep these considerations in mind as you move forward with employee terminations:

KNOW THE LAW

Carefully review laws regarding termination in your area, including statutes covering discrimination, wrongful termination, and breach of contract. If you need help, obtain professional legal advice – we would recommend these guys – Browne Jacobson

FOLLOW PROTOCOL

If no clear termination protocol exists for your company, now is the time to generate a by-the-book procedure that can be applied consistently and fairly. Some companies follow a termination checklist that begins with a verbal warning, then a written warning, then unpaid leave, then formal termination. If you institute this plan, be prepared to follow through. This means that both minor offenses (like taking home office supplies) and major offenses (like stealing large sums of money from other employees) must be treated with the same verbal warning, and the warning will need to be documented in a consistent way.

HAVE A WITNESS

At least three people should be in the room when the final conversation with an employee takes place. This can ease the awkwardness and smooth out any complications if something goes wrong. During the conversation, be honest, but don’t argue with the employee. Everything you say can open the door to additional questions about the necessity of the termination.

DOCUMENTATION IS VITAL

Never attempt to terminate an employee for performance issues without a documented series of poor reviews. Sophisticated software like emPerform can help you keep clear records, and with these records, you can produce immediate evidence of all the areas in which the employee’s performance varied from clearly defined expectations. You’ll also need to make sure that these defined expectations match what employees are actually expected to do. In all cases, clarity, adherence to procedure, and consistent documentation will be your best protection against legal action and financial loss.

Visit www.emperform.co.uk to learn more about emPerform and to request a live demo.

Our close contact with HR professionals gives us access to plenty of horror stories. And too many of these stories are about outdated (pre-emPerform!) management strategies for appraisals and overall performance documents.

We admit we’ve seen some pretty crafty solutions, including meticulously formatted spreadsheet forms with umpteen versions floating around and some very ‘attractive’ and buggy intranet-based IT web forms. Over and over again, we see a focus on executing the process and very little time and focus left over for strategic performance management tasks and analysis. So what are some key indicators that it’s time to ditch your current processes and modernise?

21 Signs you Need emPerform

1. You answered ‘yes’ to any of the questions asked in the first paragraph.

2. You have to sort through mounds of file folders to find old appraisals (or even current ones).

3. Employees are using physical journals for documenting performance milestones or more likely – are not using anything!

4. Managers avoid you in the hall because they know you’re going to remind them once again to get their evaluations done.

5. You have different rating scales being used on different appraisals and then are forced to try to compare results.

6. Your company spends loads of time establishing strategic goals and for some reason, nothing is being translated into employee action.

7. You have no idea who the company stars are and definitely have no way of proving low-performance.

8. Your HR staff and department managers are experiencing communication and data sharing problems.

9. Your current system offers no cross-referencing capability.

10. Your current data just isn’t useful for any type of decision making.

11. Top management is demanding your voice in company decision making and your recommendations and insight into the current performance health of the company.

12. Employees and managers dread appraisals because the task seems tedious and not very valuable.

13. You have no way of using accurate performance metrics as a basis for fair and consistent compensation decisions and neither do managers.

14. Other than their own memory or some post-it notes, managers have no tools for employee goal management, monitoring, feedback assistance, journaling, competency management, or development planning.

15. Your company’s workforce is becoming larger and more spread out geographically, making it difficult to keep appraisals consistent and have them submitted on time.

16. Your competitors have been using an automated performance management system and are dashing ahead.

17. You know you want to start using 360 reviews for performance assessments but you just don’t have the right tools.

18. Having vacant leadership positions is costing your company far too much time and money.

19. You have a hunch that employee engagement is in the red but have no way of proving it.

20. You looked around for software to automate performance management but couldn’t find anything that was fully customisable to your workflows and content, allowed for hosted OR on-premise deployment, was easy-to-use and completely web-based, and had a price that didn’t make you gulp.

21. You want to automate the process of gathering data so that you can focus on analysing and acting on it.

If you related to any of the points above, it’s time to get emPerform. We know…we get it…and we can help. Get started with a free trial and we’ll work with you to get you started quickly and at a price that will have you regretting not updating your processes sooner.

For those employed after 5 April 2012, the qualifying period of continuous employment is extended to two years before the right not to be unfairly dismissed, and the right to request a written statement of reasons for dismissal, is acquired. The TUC warns the changes will lead to a ‘hire-and-fire culture’ and may affect 2.7 million people, especially the young, women and ethnic minorities. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills maintain that anti-discrimination rules remain untouched so employees remain protected; they claim the changes will boost jobs and promote growth. The real effect of the changes will be determined by employment tribunal statistics, and as such, remains to be seen.

Protect your business from unfair dismissal claims. Sophisticated software like emPerform can help you keep clear records, and with these records, you can produce immediate evidence of all the areas in which the employee’s performance varied from clearly defined expectations. You’ll also need to make sure that these defined expectations match what employees are actually expected to do. In all cases, clarity, adherence to procedure, and consistent documentation will be your best protection against legal action and financial loss.

This content was reposted from http://www.law-less-ordinary.co.uk/wordpress/category/employmentlawyers/

There are no simple answers to these questions, but while HR departments search and wait for a collective epiphany, here are five key points that managers and supervisors need to keep in mind:

1. The value of feedback stays high when channels remain open

A sudden blast of unaccustomed feedback once a year, whether positive or negative, isn’t likely to have much impact on long term performance. A manager who rarely offers feedback will eventually seem disconnected from an employee’s daily activities. And how much can praise or criticism mean when it comes from someone with little knowledge of what we actually do? When feedback is rare, it’s jarring, questionable, and ultimately dismissible. Especially the negative kind.

On the other hand, regular doses of meaningful feedback build trust on both sides. Trust leads to credibility, and credibility leads to open ears and a calm, flexible response to performance assessment. Regular feedback transforms the process from an intimidating event to an every-day communication tool. Think of feedback and constant nudges keeping employees on-track and helping them to reach their goals.

2. Employees appreciate it more than managers may realise

A manger may spend an hour searching for a way to phrase criticism delicately while, meanwhile, an employee continues to fumble in the dark, wanting nothing more than a clear indication that she is or isn’t on the right track. Employees are often less concerned with displays of approval then they are with doing a good job. Don’t underestimate their resilience. Most employees WANT to learn, want to improve, and want continuous feedback.

3. Don’t expect employees to read between the lines

This is a common practice. Managers are hesitant to confront employees or simply do not make the time to properly plan or schedule proper feedback sessions. Instead, they make a comment or sent a small email and sandwich the feedback in other content. Employees cannot be expected to analyse their supervisors words or intents – and for good reason. No organisation wants their employees spending time deducing meaning. If managers have something relevant and productive to say – positive or constructive – have on with it and be clear.

4. Be timely, specific, and focus on behavior

The best employee feedback is timely, specific, and focuses on behavior and not the person or the intent. Solution-oriented feedback revolves around managers being committed to development and improvement rather than stone sold critique. Vague comments leave room for employee confusion and interpretation and feedback that isn’t timely can be a complete waste of time if the incident or project has passed.

5. Feedback represents valuable data, but only when it’s handled properly

No matter how it’s collected or received, feedback represents a two-way data stream between a company and an employee. And like any form of data, feedback will have more value if it’s stored, managed, and aggregated effectively. No matter how you choose to shape your HR management strategy, a sophisticated software platform like emPerform can help you process feedback and get the most out of your employee-supervisor relationships.

So what does this mean for those who make a living developing and refining HR protocols? How can masters of data collection make sure their skills are being put to the best use? And how can HR professionals make sure that department managers are taking reviews to heart, following through on development plans and making performance improvement plans work?

If you know your employee appraisal data is valuable and accurate, but you need to ensure follow-through, here are a few considerations to keep in mind after the review cycle ends.

Make sure managers are held accountable for employee performance. Under-performers are often kept on the payroll for a host of reasons; including their relationships with managers and the intangible benefits they bring to the office. But if managers can’t bring these employees up to speed or take coaching efforts seriously, it’s time for HR to intervene. Schedule regular meetings with managers who aren’t following through, and keep the pressure on. Don’t let measurable performance shortcomings slip through the cracks.

Make sure high performers receive every reward they have coming. Don’t allow managers to put off promises or conversations about promotion opportunities, and make sure the spirit of a reward matches the letter. Most important, make sure managers benefit when their employees shine. When training efforts succeed, the manager deserves some of the credit.

Make sure the pressures you apply and the improvement and development plans you put into action after the employee appraisal process are all backed up by measurable data. Employee appraisal software like emPerform can help to keep your performance records accurate, your facts straight, your criteria measurable, and your follow-through efforts on track.

In reality, employee growth often happens in fits and starts, with a vast increase in one area often accompanied by stagnant skill acquisition in another. The pace and direction of an employee’s contributions can vary, and some of their greatest contributions can be among the most difficult to measure. Just like the evaluation process, the goal setting process is best approached with a dose of common sense and an understanding of the flexibility of human nature. As long as managers and employees keep the process meaningful and realistic, goal setting can be vital to employee growth and company productivity.

Here are a few common circumstances that can derail realistic goal setting. If you see these things happening, take control of the process and steer it back on track.

Employees are being compared to an unexamined standard. Employees need to meet and exceed expectations. But how are these expectations established? What is the gold standard, how is it measured, and how often is it reviewed and changed?

Employee resources are not being considered during the evaluation and goal setting process. Are employees working with limited tools under circumstances that undermine performance? If the answer is “I don’t know”, find out. Goals are realistic only when resources are taken into account.

Employees are being compared to each other, and nothing else. What productivity measurements are standard for the industry? Research this before putting goals in place.

Performance is excellent but growth is slow, or vice versa. Often the most productive employees don’t improve much during a year. Sometimes the worst performers, on closer examination, have made enormous strides. Both of these should be considered victories, but only within limits. Take history into account when setting a course for the future.

Technology is being underutilised. If you are not using an automated employee performance management software solution for creating and tracking goals and linking them to corporate objectives, then you are making things harder than they need to be. Let software such as emPerform handle record management and data analysis so you can stay focused on the human element.

Annual employee appraisal season has recently come to an end and most of the experienced managers and long term employees within your organisation have been through the process before and know exactly what’s expected of them. Self-evaluations have been typed up and submitted, and managers have assessed the progress of each individual, chosen learning and development strategies, and come up with ways to reward top performers.

But what about those mysterious entities, those blank slates with no clear record of accomplishment or struggle and no documented performance issues of any kind?

New employees who have been on board for fewer than six months can be challenging to evaluate, but managers dismiss these challenges at their peril. The first review can have a defining impact on an employee’s relationship with a company, and even if your managers have nothing to say, they’d better come up with something fast, and they’d better recognise that the stakes may be higher this year than ever before!

Tact and foresight will play key roles during a new employee evaluation. Remember that the company may see the new hire as probationary, but the employee likely views the company in the same light. If he or she is criticised more harshly than she expects, or confronted with drummed up negatives as well as positives because the protocol requires a balance, this may sow seeds of demotivation that can be hard to weed out later. By the same token, praising them wildly for showing up every morning may give a false sense of their manager’s expectations.

Most of the time, employee reviews are based on a set of relatively objective truths, and the truth can free a manager from some of the human uncertainty involved in effective coaching, discipline and motivation. But new employees come with very few objective truths. So you’ll need to make the most of every performance metric you’re able to gather.  Your appraisal software can help. Choose appraisal software, like emPerform that can help you collect and analyse data across a wide variety of objective criteria. Start the analytic and record keeping process the day the employee joins the firm, and a few weeks or months down the road, you’ll be ready for a review that’s data-rich, productive, and meaningful.

These objectives are all vital aspects of performance tracking and workplace management. But the review process, no matter how valuable, comes with a few caveats. Once your review procedure becomes cost ineffective, its drawbacks begin to outweigh its benefits. The following tips can help to ensure that your evaluation process runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible:

1. Keep the audit principle in mind. Instead of examining every minute detail of every employee’s performance, monitor a small number of details that suggest competence or incompetence across broad areas. For example, if too many customer complaints suggest an underlying problem, use “number of customer complaints” as one of the points in a five point audit. If an employee’s number falls above or below a certain threshold, investigate further. If not, move on.

2. Carefully weigh the benefits before taking steps to increase breadth and objectivity. Many mangers find value in 360 degree reviews, where peers and subordinates, not just supervisors, evaluate a worker’s performance. This may be a valuable evaluation tool for some positions. But for others, it simply means that twelve employees instead of one will spend an hour completing the review. Make sure the gains of the review are worth 11 additional hours of lost productivity.

3. Make sure the review process stays brief, measurable, and goal-oriented for managers who have limited personal contact with their direct reports. Keep the process meaningful in these cases, and don’t require absentee managers to provide lengthy comments on unquantifiable or open-ended performance criteria.

4. Focus on automation. Technology moves fast. Re-examine your review workflows at least once every year, and maintain an ongoing search for new tools and new ways to streamline and automate your process. Don’t waste time on record maintenance or data management if you can easily rely on a sophisticated employee appraisal software program to handle this for you. emPerform‘s cutting edge employee appraisal software can keep your review process efficient and cost effective.

Request a webinar or view the emPerform product tour.

The best processes for talent management within an organisation involve a role for HR, managers, senior executives, and employees. Generally, HR is responsible for taking the lead; however, without clear involvement and support from managers and executives, a talent management system or strategy will never achieve its full potential.

What role do Managers play? While HR is usually responsible for providing the processes, workflows, and systems to enable talent management, it is ultimately managers who are responsible for nurturing, guiding, developing, and identifying talent. Managers work directly with employees and as such have an understand of relevant performance issues, development requirements, possible successors and overall output. For an effective talent management strategy to take effect, it is important that managers are given the tools, time, and training to effectively communicate, document, assess, identify, develop, and align talent. HR can provide the knowledge and platforms for evaluating and engaging employees, but management must properly use those tools and processes.

What role do executives play? Executives are usually the defining force of the effectiveness of an organisation’s talent management strategy. HR does serve as consultants, shepherds and owners of tactical execution of talent management processes; however, without commitment from the top, these processes are likely to be underestimated by managers and thus poorly executed. Talent management should be at the heart of business strategy. It is vital that executives show their commitment to talent management systems and processes in order to ensure user adoption and foster management’s engagement in the process.

What role do employees play? Fortunately, employee roles in building a solid talent management strategy also have direct benefits to the organisation. Employees are responsible for developing and executing performance goals that are aligned with company objectives, are expected to participate in performance and development plans and discussions, and are often times asked to provide insightful feedback about processes, peers, and management. The good news is that studies show that employees who are aware and involved in performance management processes are more likely to be engaged in their roles. High employee engagement has a direct correlation to organisational success – and that’s just good news for everyone.

What role doesn’t HR play? It is clear from the above mentioned points that HR seems to be involved in almost every aspect of talent management. In a sense this is true – a company’s HR department has the mindset and expertise to identify bottlenecks in talent management, and propose, execute, lead, and maintain any remedies. HR’s role is challenging and sometimes underestimated. HR should be leaders and experts of their organisation’s talent management strategies and yet possess the skills and patience necessary to convey instructions and processes to every level within the organisation. Recent years have shed light on the strategic importance of HR’s contribution to a company’s bottom line. This, coupled with the availability of cost effective solutions for automating systems, has led to HR being expected to add performance accountability to their laundry list of duties. The good news is that technology is freeing up more and more time for HR to focus on talent management strategy and optimisation instead of talent management administration.

Quick Tip: One of the most effective strategies that we have seen organisations deploy is the creation of ‘Talent Management Tactical Teams’ that consist of a relevant mix of management, HR, I.T., decision makers, and in some cases, top performers. The Tactical Team is responsible for reviewing, evaluating, and executing an organisation’s talent management strategy and systems. This approach is very effective as it exploits the strengths and weaknesses of current practices and produces a talent management strategy that works for every level and department. We have also found that solution purchases made to simplify and streamline talent management processes are more likely to be considered and approved in a timely manner if decision makers are reassured that solutions have been analyzed and given the go-ahead from multiple departments.

Find out more about Talent management Software and employee performance management solutions – View emPerform