Understanding Scales for Performance Management

A competency rating scale is a method of measuring an employee level of proficiency in a particular skill area or job assignment. One or more competency rating scales must be associated with performance management. You might use different competency rating scales to measure different employee competencies. For example, if an employee must pass an internal certification process as a prerequisite for promotional consideration, an appropriate competency rating scale might include only pass or fail, or a scale of two. When an employee competency requires measured progress toward a goal, a competency rating scale of five or ten might be appropriate.

For performance management, you typically must enter new competency rating scales that measure employee performance progress. If only one competency rating scale exists for competency management, and that scale is applicable to all performance management situations, then you can reuse the same scale in performance management. If more than one scale exists for competency management, then you must define one or more competency rating scales for performance management.

When you define rating scales for performance management, you must specify the rating level that represents 100 percent of the organizational performance expectation. For example, if you use a rating scale of 10, you might define 100 percent as a rating level of 5. To apply this approach, a manager might rate an employee at a level of 6 for a specific competency, which indicates that the employee is performing above 100 percent of the organizational expectation.

You use the Scale Information program (P05103) to create new competency rating scales for performance management.