Job competencies are demonstrable and measurable clusters of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that an employee needs to perform their work functions successfully. In 15Five, competencies are used in our Best-Self Review® and Career Hub features. This article walks through how competencies interact with reviews and Career Hub, as well as how to upload and manage competencies.
In this article, you will learn…
- What "competencies" are in 15Five, and how they interact with different 15Five features
- How to upload competencies
- How to manage competencies
Note
Only account administrators can upload and manage competencies.
Competencies in 15Five
Competencies are demonstrable and measurable clusters of knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes that an employee needs to perform their work functions successfully. They can be used in both our Best-Self Review® and Career Hub features.
Best-Self Review®
There is an optional 'Competencies' questions section that you can include in review cycles that allows review authors to rate on how the person they're reviewing demonstrates specific job competencies. You will be asked to create competency-specific questions during the process of creating a question template.
Competencies that are added after a review cycle has begun will not be retroactively included in that review cycle's questions. You will be able to decide whether a competency question is group-specific or for all participants when you are creating a question template. There is an entire page dedicated to reporting on competency results, under Team's and Company's results, when the review cycle comes to an end.
Career Hub
In Career Hub, competencies can be aligned with roles in Career Paths to give your employees insight into what knowledge, skills, behaviors, and attitudes are necessary for successful performance. One competency can group multiple skills and key behaviors.
Upload competencies
Note
Competencies need to be added/uploaded to 15Five prior to uploading career paths if competencies are used in career paths structure.
Note
You can add competencies to 15Five one-off by following the steps in the next section of this article (‘Manage competencies’).
1. Click on the Settings gear in the top right-hand corner of your 15Five account.
2. Select ‘Features’ from the dropdown menu.
3. Click on 'Competencies and Paths'.
4. You will land on the 'Import' tab for competencies and paths. In this tab you will see three sections: 1) Competencies upload, 2) Paths and Skills upload, and 3) Import history. Scroll down to the ‘Competencies’ box. If you don’t already have a template prepared, click Download Competencies CSV Template to download a fillable CSV.
5. Create your CSV. The CSV template you downloaded contains two columns: one for competency name (required) and one for competency description (optional). Fill out the CSV and save it as a UTF-8 file.
Note
The character limit for competencies is 75 characters. Additionally, new competencies added via import will add to your existing competencies, not replace them. You can use an import to update existing competencies already in 15Five, as well as add new ones, but competencies will not be deleted/replaced if they aren't included in the import file.
6. Once your CSV is prepared for upload, click the Upload competencies button.
7. You’ll be led to a page that outlines what should be included in the CSV you just created. From here, click Continue to upload.
8. Upload the CSV you created by clicking Create new import and selecting the file from your computer.
9. Once your CSV is uploaded successfully, you will see a confirmation page that lists the number of items you uploaded. Review your changes, then click Publish to complete your upload.
10. You’ll be directed to a page that says “Congrats! Your competencies have been published”. Click either Start new upload to upload another CSV, or Done to return to the 'Import' tab.
Manage competencies
Once competencies are uploaded you can manage them from within Competencies and Paths settings. If at any time you want to see what competencies are uploaded for your company or edit current competencies, you can do so from within Competencies and Paths settings.
Note
We suggest performing a bulk CSV upload of competencies by following the steps in the prior ‘Upload competencies’ section of this article to get competencies and their descriptions into 15Five, and using the settings section to make minor changes as needed.
1. Click on the Settings gear in the top right-hand corner of your 15Five account.
2. Select ‘Features’ from the dropdown menu.
3. Click on 'Competencies and Paths'.
4. Click ‘Settings’ in the top navigation bar.
5. Click the arrow next to ‘Competencies’.
6. You will now see a full, editable list of all competencies and associated competency descriptions for your company.
Edit a competency or description by clicking into the text box and desired changes.
If you try to edit a competency that is currently in-use, you will see a pop-up that says, “Once edited, this competency will be updated within all career path(s) it is associated with and all reviews’ template questions. Any competencies edited during an active review cycle will be reflected after that review cycle is completed.” To continue editing, click the Edit button.
Add a new competency and description by scrolling to the bottom of the ‘Competencies’ section and clicking +Add competency.
Delete an existing competency and description by clicking the X to the right of that competency.
If you try to delete a competency that is currently in-use, you will see a pop-up that says, “Once deleted, this competency will be removed from all career path(s) it is associated with and all reviews’ template questions. Any competencies deleted during an active review cycle will be reflected after that review cycle is completed.” To continue, click the Delete button.