discussion

What are the pros and cons of using competencies when reviewing performance?

Gessler in his book references to the SHRM Body of Competency and Knowledge. To which according to SHRM there are Technical Competences and Behavioral Competencies. Technical Competence is the knowledge needed to perform in a given profession and Behavioral Competence is the how that knowledge is applied. It is recognizable that application of both knowledge (the what) and behavior (the how) are very much needed for the success of any business strategy; yet neither of these competencies would be enough if measured by itself. When reviewing a performance, it is crucial to review the what and the how for the employee.

Pros:

1. When measuring employees performances, their goals and results must have a constant trend if they are meetings those expectations. By reviewing both what and how in an employee’s performance, it can become clear what they are using and how they are applying.
2. These types of performances review, helps managers to easily identify which employees are making and exceeding established goals and which employees are not.
3. These performances are productive, because by measuring the what and how of successful employees, those who are not performing satisfactory can be easily trained and helped.
4. Also, from an HR standpoint, this performances reviews also helps the company establish achievable and realistic goals.

Cons:

1. It is both stressful for the employee to go through a performance review and also for the manager to provide one.
2. The delivery of this performance review must be done in a very specific way so employees don’t lower their confidence in their profession. Usually, the manager does not want to strict or harsh even to the employee, but being to kind with this delivery can actually null the main reason for it; which is to find areas of opportunities and improve them, and those areas that are met in goals, to praise them for it.
3. Employees who are not meeting goals may shift their attitude toward their performance if this performance review is given in a negative aspect, not providing ways to help them improve.

Overall, I believe that in order to have a successful performance review the manager has to be confident to provide a review based on the employee’s dashboard (in an incentive-based employment) and address both exceeding numbers and identify those areas of opportunities where a goal is not met or is unsatisfactory. Also, the employee must be willing to accept a performance review with a positive view. On either being recognized for exceeding goals or finding areas of opportunities with the manager and create solutions to improve.

Reference:

Dessler, G. (2017). Human resource management (15th ed.). Pearson Education.

One pro and con that i can think of when using employee competencies when reviewing their performance is good measurements and the con would be time consuming from a leadership perspective.

I placed good measurements and a pro because when reviewing employee competencies one is able to easily illustrate and measure an employee’s growth within their job performance. It also helps in aligning company, job and employee constructive goals that can be measurable and smart to complete.

Time consuming would be the first con to come to mind. From my understanding- performance reviews are exhausting due to the about of information it involves. It also takes a good communication writing skills and the history notes accumulation included for each employee. I can just imagine how long it would take for a supervisor or manager leading a team of 15 or more individuals and each must have a review. Another element that i could see would be that if the review is only based on competencies – it does not include any information about a formal pay increase and this as we all know is a key element for employees and they will always be left with questions in reference to that until bonus or pay increase are incorporated into the picture but do they really fit their competencies review or is it just a global bonus based or pay increase percentage raise.

Thanks for reading,

Lianet Blanco.