How to roll out competency-based rubrics
Building your talent management strategy takes effort and dedication from key decision-makers and implementation champions in the organization. We know that clear career progression pathways increase employee satisfaction and organizational commitment. Looking for a way to help your company retain top talent and increase employee loyalty? Our competency-based rubrics can help you build a structured, clear, and fair progression system that breaks the cycle of biased reviews and career stagnation. We can save you time and valuable resources while building a stronger, more engaged and satisfied workforce.
What is a competency-based rubric?
Competencies are skills or abilities necessary to perform a particular job or task. They are a specific knowledge area required for a particular role or profession. Competencies can be technical or non-technical, and they can be specific to a particular industry or job function. For example, a competency for a software developer might be knowledge of a specific programming language, while a competency for a customer service representative might be excellent communication skills.
A competency-based rubric is a tool used to evaluate an individual's performance or ability in a specific competency. It is a detailed list of the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities required for successful performance in a particular role or task. The rubric defines the expected levels of competency, from novice to expert, and provides a clear and objective way to assess an individual's progress or proficiency in a given area. Competency-based rubrics are often used in workplace performance evaluations and in education settings to help guide learning.
What teams are involved in rolling out career progression programs?
HR SaaS alone can’t build a culture of feedback. Transparent, competency-focused contextual feedback does. Several teams may be involved in rolling out a new competency-based career progression program, including:
- Human Resources: This team is responsible for designing the program and ensuring that it aligns with the overall goals and objectives of the organization. The HR team will integrate performance management with compensation - developing narrower compensation bands with more levels. The workplace learning team, often a part of HR, will be responsible for creating and delivering training programs to support employee competency development.
- Managers: Managers drive implementation by providing feedback to employees on their progress and development.
- Employee representatives: Employees from different departments and levels of the organization provide input and feedback on the program.
- IT: This team ensures that the necessary technology and systems are in place to support the program, supporting a competency tracking and assessment platform. Pando has 20 integrations, so your IT team can sync it with your HRIS and other systems.
What are your key messages and communication plan?
Managing change, like implementing a new competency-based career progression program, means developing a communication plan for a variety of audiences.
Communicate the paradigm shift and its positive business impact to managers: Pando breaks the cycle of biased reviews and career stagnation by encouraging employees to track their impact continuously, logging achievements as they progress, not at a single point in time. This empowers employees, who can request feedback at any time, and benefits managers, moving from cyclical to just-in-time career progression to build better rapport and increase employee engagement.
Educate employees on competencies and skills and how these relate to job leveling: Provide employees with clear information on the competencies and skills required for various roles within the organization, and how they can develop and demonstrate these competencies. With Pando, there is built-in job leveling that is transparent and organization-wide, reducing bias in who gets promoted. Workplace learning can provide complementary training opportunities to help employees develop the competencies required for career advancement within the organization.
Involve employees in the development of the program: Engage employees directly to ensure that the program meets their needs and aligns with the organization's goals and values. This can be done through focus groups, surveys, and anonymous feedback mechanisms. It is especially important to invite multiple perspectives and consider power dynamics when asking for group feedback.
Communicate regularly with managers and employees throughout implementation: Regular communication is key to ensuring that employees and managers are aware of and understand the new program and complementary resources, like workplace learning pathways. The organization should also engage and share about program evaluation, gathering feedback from employees and managers to ensure that it is meeting its intended goals.
Rolling out a new competency-based rubric program requires engaging cross-functional teams and developing a communication plan to engage employees and managers. However, by employing a transparent approach, you can build buy-in across the organization, so that employees and managers see the benefits of clear career progression pathways with just-in-time feedback.
