Core competencies

What are core competencies in performance reviews?

Core competencies are essential attributes, behaviors, and soft skills that organizations use during performance reviews to evaluate how employees get their work done. They look beyond tasks and goals to understand how employees contribute to the overall workplace culture, values, and environment. These competencies are usually consistent for every employee across different roles, departments, and designations.

Why are core competencies essential in performance reviews?

Evaluating employees against the defined competencies can help HR teams:

Provides a uniform standard for evaluating every employee without any biases.
Set clear expectations on behavioral and cultural values.
Align individual employees' efforts with the overall organizational vision and mission.
Identify employees with high potential for leadership roles.
Determine behavioral and skill gaps so that they can organize targeted training programs.

How are core competencies different from job-specific competencies?

Unlike core competencies, job-specific competencies are tailored for each role. They include the key technical skills, knowledge, and attributes that help employees get their work done efficiently. For instance, coding, testing, and technical problem-solving are some of the essential competencies for engineering roles, whereas negotiation, prospecting, and customer relationship management are required for sales roles. On the other hand, core competencies are expected from each employee, irrespective of their role.

What are some examples of core competencies?

Here are some of the common core competencies that organizations usually look at:

Communication
Problem solving
Decision making
Critical thinking
Adaptability
Team work
Time management
Emotional intelligence
Ethics
Reliability

How does an organization determine its core competencies?

The first step is to develop a clear understanding of the organization’s vision, culture, long-term goals, business strategy, and what it actually stands for. This helps HR teams identify the behaviors, attributes, and soft skills employees need to support their organization’s overall mission. It’s also useful for HR teams to collaborate with managers and the leadership team to highlight which skills and traits make high performers successful. In addition, HR teams can run surveys to understand which competencies employees believe are essential for working effectively within the organization. With these insights, HR teams can effectively narrow down five to eight competencies that every employee is expected to demonstrate, irrespective of their role.

How does an organization determine its core competencies? How are core competencies measured during performance reviews?

Here are some common ways to measure core competencies during performance reviews:

360-degree feedback: This method is efficient because peers, mentors, mentees, managers, and colleagues can provide accurate insights on how the employee demonstrated their competencies.
Behavioral indicators: HR teams can define what effective and non-effective behavior looks like under each competency.
Self-assessments: Employees can rate themselves on how well they think they demonstrated the expected competencies.