There are countless ways of evaluating employees on their proficiency in a competency . We’ve identified three options with varying degrees of complexity that will all provide workable results.
In each of the options we use a five-level scale:
 Greatly Exceeds Expectations

Tip:
 Exceeds Expectations
 Meets Expectations
 Occasionally Meets Expectations
 Unsatisfactory
Good performance management systems require – or at least encourage – supervisors to provide their own narrative comments to supplement the competency evaluation. Employees appreciate and are more receptive to honest and constructive comments than they are to a check mark in a box.
Which Performance Evaluation Option Should I Use?
To a large extent, the evaluation option you choose will depend on how rigorously accurate your competency assessments need to be. And this in turn depends on how much weight you place on the competency portion of the overall assessment and how you intend to use the overall assessment.
 If your agency uses the competency assessment to reinforce agency values and/or primarily as a development tool, then the rigor of the assessment is less important. The purpose of the assessment (particularly when employees do a self-assessment) is to encourage a dialogue between the employee and supervisor about competency strengths and developmental needs. This discussion serves as the foundation for the IDP. Option 1 may be sufficient for your purposes.
 If your agency weights the components of the performance evaluation, the rigor of the competency assessment should correspond to its overall weight. For most human services jobs, we believe a good weight distribution is Objectives: 60%, Competencies: 40%. For weighed components, try using Option 2 .
 If your agency is using competency evaluations as the basis for merit pay (i.e., where the competency assessment carries a greater weight than the performance objectives assessment), then the competency assessment process must be as objective and rigorous as possible. You may want to consider using Option 3 below.
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Option
Advantages Disadvantages
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
 Requires relatively little effort to implement
 Relatively easy to implement but does require that you identify the key elements of the competency.
 Utilizes Behaviorally
Anchored Rating Scales
(BARS) which minimize the subjectivity of evaluating employees on competencies.
 Provides both employees and supervisors with the common yardstick to use in evaluating performance.
 Doesn’t permit specific assessment of the key elements within the broad competency definition.
 Rating Scales don’t permit the specific assessment of the key elements within the broad competency definition. Consequently, inter-rater reliability cannot be expected to be high.
 Assessing each key element requires supervisors to spend a bit more time on the evaluation process since they are expected to give thoughtful consideration to the ranking of each key element separately.
 The rating scales offer little guidance to the rating supervisor on how the rating levels differ from one another.
 Developing good BARS can be time intensive and difficult work.
 Evaluators find the evaluation process very tedious. Even when the statements are concise, reading through the BARS for four to six key elements for seven or eight competencies is tedious.
 Evaluators may become frustrated by the fact that concisely-worded BARS still do not accurately describe observed performance.
2

The simplest evaluation plan involves rating competency proficiency in very broad terms. The sample evaluation form below requires an assessment against the broad definition of the competency.
Communication : Clearly conveys and receives information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the listener, helps them understand and retain the message and invites response and feedback. Keeps others informed as appropriate. Demonstrates good written, oral and listening skills.
Greatly Exceeds
Expectations
Comments :
Exceeds
Expectations
Meets
Expectations
Occasionally
Meets
Expectations
Unsatisfactory
3

Option 2 involves rating proficiency on each of the key elements of the competency. The evaluation form is designed to require the supervisor to assess each key element on the fivelevel rating scale as shown below.
Communication : Clearly conveys and receives information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the listener, helps them understand and retain the message and invites response and feedback. Keeps others informed as appropriate. Demonstrates good written, oral, and listening skills.
Greatly
Exceeds
Expectations
Exceeds
Expectations
Meets
Expectations
Occasionally
Meets
Expectations
Unsatisfactory
Key Element
Organization and Clarity
Listening Skills
Keeping Others
Informed
Written
Communication
Sensitivity to
Others
Comments :
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Option 3 also involves rating proficiency on each of the key elements of the competency. In order to minimize subjectivity, you can use Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS) to describe the range of performance levels for the key elements of a competency, as illustrated in the sample form below.
Developing good BARS can be time intensive and difficult work. A focus group of employees and supervisors familiar with the job begins by describing the range of behaviors observed within each of the key elements of the competency. Those examples are aligned with the rating scales, and rewritten into concise statements.
Communication : Clearly conveys and receives information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the listener, helps them understand and retain the message and invites response and feedback.
Keeps others informed as appropriate. Demonstrates good written, oral, and listening skills.
Needs
Development
Unsatisfactory Key Element
Organization and Clarity
Listening
Skills
Keeping
Others
Informed
Greatly Exceeds
Expectations
Conveys thoughts and ideas so as to avoid misunderstandings.
Communicates with needs and expectations of audience in mind.
Listens with demonstrated understanding and empathy. Thoughtfully explores topic as appropriate
Exceeds
Expectations
Continuously fulfills all knowledge requirements of supervisors, co-workers and others.
Meets
Expectations
Conveys thoughts clearly and concisely
Listens actively and attentively and asks appropriate questions
Keeps supervisors, coworkers, and others well informed
Has difficulty expressing thoughts.
Fails to listen and share feedback
Fails to share important information or passes on trivia
Written
Communication
Communications are error free, have positive tone, and seem professionally written.
Sensitivity to
Others
Continuously tailors communications to match the listener/s; uses appropriate style, level of detail, grammar and organization of thoughts to actively engage the listener/s.
Comments :
Communicates well in writing
Consistently sensitive to cultural, gender, educational and other individual characteristics when communicating with others
Written communications are unclear, disorganized, lack substance; contain grammatical and/or spelling errors
Insensitive to cultural, gender, educational and other individual characteristics when communicating with others
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