Competency framework template
The structure, a fully worked example, and the wording test that decides whether anyone will actually use it.
A competency framework is a written set of the behaviours and skills a role needs, defined at two or three levels so people can see what "better" actually looks like. Its value is consistency: the same standard in hiring, in development and in promotion, applied by every manager. For a team under about a hundred people, five to seven competencies is plenty - most frameworks fail because they are too big to remember, not too small to be useful.
What is a competency framework?
A competency framework is the agreed list of behaviours and skills a company expects at each level, written concretely enough that two managers reading it would score the same person the same way. Each competency needs four parts, and skipping any one of them is how frameworks end up unusable:
- A name - short, and in your own language rather than consultancy language.
- A definition - one sentence on what it means here, specifically.
- Levels - usually three: doing the job, doing it independently, and raising the standard for others.
- Behavioural indicators - what someone actually does at each level. This is the part that makes it work, and the part most frameworks leave vague.
Could two managers watch the same person for a month and independently agree whether this is happening? "Communicates well" fails. "Explains the reason for a decision, not just the decision" passes. If it cannot be observed, it cannot be assessed, and it will quietly become a proxy for whether the manager likes the person.
An example competency framework
One competency, written out fully - this is the level of specificity to aim for:
| Level | What that looks like |
|---|---|
| 1 · Doing the job | Finishes agreed work on time and says early when something will slip. Asks when stuck rather than going quiet. |
| 2 · Independent | Spots what needs doing without being assigned it. Sees a problem through to resolution rather than handing it on. Makes reasonable calls without escalating. |
| 3 · Raises the standard | Fixes the cause, not the instance. Picks up work nobody owns. Others' work improves because of how they work. |
Five to seven of those, and you have a framework. A reasonable starting set for a small business: ownership, judgement, communication, working with others, craft or technical skill, plus one that is genuinely specific to you - the thing you would be unhappy to lose about how your team works.
A short name in your own language. A one-sentence definition of what it means in your organisation. Two or three levels. Behavioural indicators describing what someone actually does at each level - observable actions, never "is passionate" or "has gravitas".
How do you actually write it?
- Start from your best people, not a template. Ask what the people who are unmistakably good here actually do differently. Those sentences are your indicators.
- Draft it with the people doing the job. A framework written about a team by someone who has never done the work reads as exactly that, and is ignored accordingly.
- Test it backwards. Take three real people you know well and place them. If the framework cannot tell them apart, or places them wrongly, the wording is not sharp enough yet.
- Use it in one process first. Hiring is the usual best start - it is low-stakes to adjust, and interviewers feel the benefit immediately. Extend to 1:1s and progression once it has survived contact with reality.
Why do most frameworks fail?
| The trap | Instead |
|---|---|
| Twelve competencies with five levels each | Six competencies, three levels. Nobody holds sixty cells in their head. |
| Unobservable wording - "is passionate", "has gravitas" | Verbs describing actions somebody could witness |
| Copied wholesale from a large corporate | Written from your own best people, in your own words |
| Published once, then never opened | Wired into hiring scorecards and 1:1s so it is used monthly |
| Behaviours that describe a personality type | Behaviours anyone could choose to do - or the framework filters for sameness |
That last one carries real risk as well as being bad practice. A framework rewarding traits like assertiveness or visible confidence, rather than the outcomes those traits are assumed to produce, will systematically disadvantage people who are effective in a different register - and if that maps onto a protected characteristic, a promotion process built on it becomes hard to defend.
Is it the same as a job description?
No, and they work best together. A job description says what the role is responsible for - the tasks, the scope, who it reports to. A competency framework says how the work is done well, and applies across roles. One tells you what the job is; the other tells you what good looks like in it. Progression conversations need the second, which is why "I have been here three years" so often collides with "but what has changed about how you work?"
Once written, the framework is what makes the rest of your people processes consistent: structured interviews, 1:1s with something concrete to discuss, and development conversations - including the 9-box grid, whose performance axis is far more defensible when it rests on agreed behaviours rather than a manager's general impression.
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Behaviours that show up all year
CoDash keeps goals, 1:1 notes and growth conversations together, so the framework is something managers use monthly rather than a document opened each December.