Competency assessment template​

Understand organizational goals and values: Start by aligning with your organization's long-term goals and core values. The competencies you define should support these objectives and reflect the culture you want to cultivate.

Analyze job roles: Examine each role in your organization carefully. Consider what tasks each role entails and what makes someone successful in that position. You may need to differentiate competencies for different levels or departments.

Identify required skills and behaviors: For each role, list out the specific skills, knowledge, and behaviors that are necessary. Think about both technical skills and soft skills, like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving.

Consult with stakeholders: Engage with various stakeholders, including managers, employees, and possibly clients, to gain insights into what competencies are valuable for different roles. This can help ensure a well-rounded perspective.

Benchmark against industry standards: Look at industry trends and standards to understand what competencies are currently valued in your field. This helps in keeping your organization competitive and forward-thinking

Prioritize and categorize: Once you have a comprehensive list, prioritize the competencies based on their importance and relevance to each role. You may categorize them into core competencies (essential for all employees) and role-specific competencies.

Develop behavioral indicators: For each competency, develop clear behavioral indicators. These are specific actions or behaviors that demonstrate competency in a real-world setting. This step is crucial for the effective assessment and development of these competencies.

Integrate into HR processes: Ensure that the defined competencies are integrated into various human resources processes like recruitment, performance evaluation, training, and development programs.

Review and update regularly: The business world is dynamic, and competencies may evolve. Regularly review and update the competencies to ensure they remain relevant and aligned with your organizational goals.

Communicate clearly: Finally, it’s important to communicate these competencies clearly to the entire organization. Employees should understand what competencies are expected of them and how these tie into their personal growth and the organization’s success.

Develop assessment criteria: Create specific, measurable criteria for each competency. These criteria should be clear and objective, allowing for consistent evaluation.

Choose assessment methods: Decide on the methods that will be used to assess each competency. This could include a mix of self-assessments, supervisor evaluations, peer reviews, or even practical tasks or simulations, all administered through an online questionnaire format.

Create questionnaire questions: Design questionnaire questions that are concise, yet comprehensive enough to cover all aspects of each competency. Questions should be structured to elicit responses that clearly indicate the presence or absence of a competency. Prioritize multiple-choice questions to allow for scoring in your assessment. You can also allow the respondent to provide some open-ended information.

Ensure validity and reliability: The assessment should be both valid (accurately measuring what it’s supposed to measure) and reliable (yielding consistent results over time).

Pilot test: Before full implementation, conduct a pilot test with a small group to identify any issues with the assessment design and make necessary adjustments.

Set up the competency assessment: Configure your online assessment to reflect the defined competencies and assessment framework questions, using custom score-based calculation (see the video below that explains custom scoring in laymen’s terms*). Ensure that the questionnaire is user-friendly, accessible, and of course secure.

Communicate with stakeholders: Communicate with managers but also with future respondents about the objectives, process, and importance of the competency assessments to ensure clarity and engagement.

Distribute assessments: Use an efficient online tool to distribute the assessments to the respective respondents. Some assessment tools, like Pointerpro, allow you to schedule, send reminders, track completion rates and even delegate the distribution of the assessments to different managers.

Monitor and support: As respondents complete their assessments, monitor the process through your assessment tool's dashboard. Be available to offer support and answer any questions or concerns that might arise.

Collect and analyze data: Your assessment tool should facilitate the collection and aggregation of assessment data. Analyze this data to gauge competencies across the organization and identify strengths and areas for development.

Provide feedback to respondents: Provide feedback to respondents based on their assessment results. Encourage discussions and learning opportunities to help them understand their competencies and areas where they can improve. Pointerpro is an assessment platform that allows you to automate giving personalized feedback and advice to respondents.

Review and update regularly: Periodically review the entire assessment process and tool functionality to ensure they remain relevant and effective in meeting your organizational goals.