Two approaches to employee assessment: when to choose competencies and when to choose criteria
Effective personnel assessment provides businesses with clear guidelines for development and management decision-making. It is the assessment results that help the HR team understand whether a person is in the right place, who in the team is ready for promotion, and what knowledge specialists lack to make a professional leap forward.
Each of these goals requires its own approach. An assessment for career planning differs from annual performance monitoring or job suitability checks.
In order for you to flexibly implement any of these strategies, LMS Collaborator offers two formats: competency-based assessment and criteria-based assessment. Despite their visual similarity, these tools have different “architectures” and solve different problems.
For assessment to bring real benefits to your business, it is important to understand when and which tool works best. In this article, we will analyze the features of each format using examples and find out how to set up an effective assessment process tailored to your company’s needs.
Competency-based assessment and criteria-based assessment: how to choose the right tool
Competency-based assessment
An assessment based on competencies is necessary when your goal is to understand how well an employee fits the “profile” of their position. It shows not just the overall level of skills, but also how well they match a specific role, its requirements, and expectations.
This format is suitable for:
- professional certification;
- career growth planning within the position;
- development of individual development plans (IDPs);
- work with the personnel reserve;
- assessment of an employee’s readiness to expand their role or transition to another position.
➡️Example of usage:
The company plans to select a new sales manager from among internal candidates. HR describes the profile of this role in advance and identifies key competencies. For example: strategic thinking, team management, negotiation, sales analytics, responsibility for results. Based on this, an assessment of sales managers is launched.
The assessment provides a realistic picture of who is ready for a management role and who still needs to work on certain skills. Based on the results, HR forms a talent pool and creates individual development plans for potential candidates that are directly related to the requirements of the future position.
🔶How it works in LMS Collaborator:
The process begins in the Competency library, where you create a set of competencies that meet the needs of your company. Each competency is revealed through specific indicators – measurable actions that demonstrate a specialist’s level of proficiency. For convenient categorization, competencies can be tagged or grouped (for example, into hard and soft skills).
The next step is to develop an assessment scale that will be applied to all selected skills. This data forms the basis of Job Profiles, where you record the goals, responsibilities, and list of necessary competencies for each role.
The assessment is created using an interactive wizard. At the start, you select the “by competencies” type and the corresponding job profile to be assessed. You go through the stages of description, parameter configuration, and user assignment in sequence. The system allows you to save drafts at any step so that you can return to the settings later.
Competency-based assessment
🎯Results and reporting:
After the assessment, the results are saved in the employee’s profile in the job profile section. The report is generated in the form of a protocol and shows all the assessments received, along with the average score for each competency. The data is divided by assessment roles: self-assessment, peer assessment, manager assessment, and others.
Competency assessment report
Criteria-based assessment
Assessment based on criteria is appropriate when employees need to be assessed according to uniform rules, regardless of their positions. It focuses on general skills, behavior, and corporate competencies.
This format is most often used for:
- annual performance reviews;
- assessments of soft skills and hard skills;
- checks for compliance with corporate standards;
- regular monitoring of team development;
- comparison of results between departments or roles.
➡️Example of usage:
The company conducts an annual review for all employees. Regardless of position, communication, teamwork, responsibility, and learning ability are assessed. For managers, a separate section on management skills is added, and for other specialists, professional skills are added. As a result, HR gets an overall picture and can compare teams with each other.
🔶How it works in LMS Collaborator:
The work begins with the creation of assessment criteria and scales by which employees will be assessed. When these elements are ready, the assessment itself is created in the wizard, where you select the “by criteria” type.
For convenience, clusters can be used to structure questionnaires. Criteria can be grouped into blocks, such as “Corporate Skills,” “Management Skills,” or “Professional Skills.” Each cluster becomes a separate page in the questionnaire with its own scale.
The main feature is the ability to use several different scales within a single assessment. This allows you to simultaneously assess diverse skills using the criteria that are most appropriate for them.
🎯Results and reporting:
LMS Collaborator collects the most in-depth analytics from assessments based on criteria. In addition to detailed self-assessment reports, the system automatically generates an analysis of the gaps between self-assessment and peer opinion, between current results and the norm. Profile analysis of groups and matrix analysis are also available, helping to clearly identify areas for employee growth.
Assessment report based on criteria
In order for the assessment to be as useful as possible for employee development and management decision-making, it is important not only to choose what to assess (competencies or criteria), but also to decide who exactly will participate in the process. This is where various assessment methods come in handy – 90°, 180°, 270°, and 360°.
Assessment methods: 90°, 180°, 270, and 360°
In LMS Collaborator, the assessment type does not limit your choice of methodology. Both competency-based and criteria-based assessments can be conducted in any format, depending on the roles you have assigned in the questionnaires.
You can choose “by competencies” and set up assessments only for managers, or vice versa – conduct a 360° survey based on corporate criteria. It all depends on the specific task.
In the system, this is configured through roles in questionnaires, which allows you to implement any classic model:
- 90° (Manager assessment) – the fastest method. The manager assesses the work of the subordinate. This is ideal for regular monthly reviews or confirmation of hard skills after learning.
- 180° (Manager + Self-assessment) – adds the employee’s own perspective. This helps identify areas where the manager’s expectations and the employee’s perceptions diverge, which is a great starting point for dialogue in 1-on-1 meetings.
- 270° (Manager + Colleagues + Self-assessment) – an extended format often used for specialists who interact a lot within a team. In this case, feedback from colleagues allows you to see the nuances of teamwork and professional behavior that may be less noticeable to the manager.
- 360° (Manager + Colleagues + Subordinates + Self-assessment) – the “gold standard” for assessing leaders and managers. It provides the most objective and comprehensive picture of how a person behaves when interacting with all levels of the organization.
Thus, you first determine the essence of the assessment (competencies for a professional portrait or criteria for general monitoring), and then simply add the required number of roles to obtain the desired “degree” of review.
Conclusion
The choice between competency-based assessment and criteria-based assessment is not about “which is better,” but rather “what task are we solving right now.”
- Competency-based assessment is your tool for working with talent in depth, where it is important that the specialist accurately matches their role and professional standards.
- Criteria-based assessment is a flexible and effective way to assess the entire team according to uniform rules, measure corporate values, or conduct a large-scale performance review.
The main advantage lies in the synergy of these approaches. You are not limited by rigid frameworks. LMS Collaborator allows you to flexibly combine both tools depending on your business objectives and HR processes. Choose the format that best suits your goals and build an effective staff development system.
