Defining seniority and competency levels

Which level of leadership skills do you expect from a CEO? And which level do you expect from an intern? Expectations will most likely be different. As we learn and make progress in our careers, the requirements on certain competencies will change. That's why you can also define seniority and competency levels.

You can define an unlimited number of seniority levels (such as 'Junior', 'Middle', 'Senior', etc.). For each level, you can define a corresponding description for each competency. When a user gives feedback to or writes an assessment for a 'Junior', Leapsome will display the corresponding competency level description, etc. The system is flexible: If a competency level is not defined, it will fall back to the default description.

1. Step: Creating levels

You will first have to define the seniority levels you want to use. This can be done under 'Users & Teams' > 'Levels', or under 'competency' > 'Levels'. Levels can also be created automatically when creating or updating users via an Excel upload. When editing a level, you can also assign that level to a specific team. Members of a team will only see the levels of the team they are on when viewing their personal competency framework.

This is how the personal competency framework will look for a user – in this example, the user is on this account's Sales team, so they only see the levels relevant to the Sales team. If a user is a part of multiple teams, they will see the levels for each of those teams. 

2. Step: Assigning levels

Subsequently, you will assign user levels, either manually via 'Users & Teams' > 'Edit user' or via the Excel upload.

The new level will be visible to the review participants if you update it during an active review cycle. Respectively, should you delete a level from 'Users & Teams'> 'Manage levels' or 'Skills'> 'Manage levels' it will disappear from the review, and you will see the other levels applicable to the particular skill along with their descriptions but no particular level assigned to the Reviewee.

3. Step: Defining competency levels

On the 'Competency Framework' tab, you can now define a competency level for each level you defined by clicking on one of your competencies. In addition to the skill title, these descriptions will be used to communicate expectations in assessments and while giving feedback.

4. Step: Viewing competency-level specific descriptions in feedback & assessments

The matching description will be shown 

• during continuous feedback on the corresponding competency
• during assessments, if a level was assigned before the cycle setup was confirmed 

If you don't add a competency-level specific description, the default competency description will be visible for the participant.

Please note: In order for the competencies to be visible with the descriptions in assessments, 'relevant for level' must be enabled. If 'relevant for level' is disabled, this will hide the entire competency and description for reviewees who have the level.