Slow Death for Reviews and Ratings... Are Competency Models Next?

The clamor around eliminating annual reviews and ratings becomes louder by the week.   Here's more noise in the form of a provocative Chief Learning Officer article titled "Say Goodbye to Competency Frameworks".

The era of the yearly performance review is over.  Competency frameworks are next for review.

The article, written by Phil LeNir, president of Coaching Ourselves, creates a compelling case for doing away with the competency model, a staple of our HR repertoire.  In the comment section you'll find a lively debate, comments range from, "this is the best thing that ever happened" to "we've created a monster".  Numerous comments essentially said,  "We know competency models aren't ideal but what's the alternative?"  In other words, "We're better off continuing something we know really doesn't work that well because what else will we do?".

Want to know if your competency scheme is effective?  Stop any employee and ask, "Can you name the competencies you're being measured on?"  If people in your organization can answer correctly,  then change nothing - you're doing something right.  If not, which is more likely, there are too many competencies to comprehend.   I've seen HR people unable to name them all.   I recommend having no more than 4 or 5.     

Let's move out of the weeds to answer a key question:   "What's the important thing?"  

The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the important thing.

 – From the book “Foundation design”, by Coduto, Donald P.:

So, what's the important thing?  Instead of pouring energy into identifying and rating a truck-load of competencies, our time is better spent having each manager answer two questions:

1. What's the one thing this person, at this point in time, is doing really well and should continue with (and what are the related competencies )?
2. What is the one thing this person can do, at this point in time, to be even more effective in his/her role (and what are the related competencies)?

Now ask, "Has this information ever flowed from the manager's mouth into the employee's ears"?  Is the manager even able to articulate this information?  With only 6% of managers being skilled at providing candid feedback and 14% skilled in managing formal performance conversations, what are the chances this information has been shared?  This isn't a trick question - it's maybe between 6 and 14% .    

Here's a litmus test to determine if your performance management process is achieving "the important thing".  After the rating and ranking of all the competencies and the hoops everyone jumps through during performance review season, ask these two simple questions of all of your employees:

1. What's the one thing your manager said you do really well and should continue with?
2. What's the one thing that you should do to be even more effective in your role?

Given the time and energy you've asked people to expend, at a minimum, everyone should be able to answer these two elemental questions.  If this checks out in your organization then change nothing  and do share your secret sauce - if not then put your processes, performance management, competency models and whatever else  under the microscope for a long, hard, and objective look.       

Most people can't answer these two questions because performance meetings,  all of 30-40 minutes, contain everything but the kitchen sink, including that carefully  *curated collection of competencies.

*full disclosure - When I was the HRD for a technology company, back in the early 90's, I  paid a high-priced Boston area consultancy $100,000 to help us develop our competency model.  It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  The results didn't justify even 10% of the cost, not to mention the time we put into it.

We don't need to throw  competencies away, but rating and ranking people on each and every one of them turns out reams of information, most of which is a bunch of meaningless commentary and redundancy.   So you want to keep your competencies?   Here are some guidelines and tips:

1. Remember, forcing managers to fill in performance review forms by rating and commenting on 5 - 10+ competencies keeps the focus on the form, not the individual.
2. Avoid the competency buffet - keep to four or five and make them memorable. One of my favorites comes from a tech client and it's called "Glad to be here".   
3. Keep job specific competencies in the job description to avoid the "buffet" effect.
4. If you MUST keep your twelve or so competencies, avoid having a performance appraisal form forcing managers to comment/rate on all of them (or look like a slacker because they lacked the creative writing skills to do so).     
5. Burn the traditional form that lists the competencies asking for comments with ratings on each. If you are still in the annual performance review dark ages this simplified form will be a welcome change.  Try this format instead.    

As HR Pros, we need to think about what works in practice - however well meaning, much of what gets designed in our conference rooms falls flat at best and at worst makes us look non-strategic, bureaucratic, and out-of-touch.    And here's the thing...HR pros have good intentions, but forcing this stuff down our organization's throats when we know in our heart of hearts it doesn't work, perpetuates our reputation as being creators of busy work and administrative distractions.  Performance management is the most visible HR "contribution", touching people at all levels in the organization.  The time for change is now, answer the call.