The following information regarding competencies was provided by Tom Sontag on 8/1/23. This information, along with the guidance found on https://www.workday.upenn.edu/home/toolbox/performance-management provides a comprehensive view of the HR perspective and the practical Workday approach to performance reviews.



  • Information about competencies:
    • Penn’s 38 competencies were purchased from Korn Ferry, a leader in HR research and consulting.
    • These competencies are globally validated and normed across highly successful organizations in all industries, including higher education.
    • Competencies define the behavioral elements of work (“how” we work).
    • Combining competencies with goals (“what” work we do), helps us all focus on what makes us most successful in our roles.
    • Information about Penn’s competencies may be accessed at: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/for-managers/competencies
    • Penn’s competency definitions, along with behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS) may be found at: https://www.hr.upenn.edu/PennHR/learn-grow/penn-competency-library/1
  • How are competencies assigned:
    • All UPenn staff are assigned 5 core competencies, determined during discussions with senior leaders:
      • Ensures Accountability
      • Collaborates
      • Communicates Effectively
      • Customer Focus
      • Values Differences
    • Five additional competencies are assigned based on job family. 
      • Penn has 14 job families, determined when Penn created what’s called the Job Architecture in Workday. This was a process of putting jobs that had similar work into job families and then organizing each job family hierarchically.
      • Some examples of job families include Human Resources, Business & Finance, Information Technology, Healthcare Providers, Research, Administrative Support, etc.
      • To identify job family competencies, a cross-section of members of each job family was surveyed to determine which additional 5 competencies were most important to success for roles in that job family now and in the future.
    • With the five core competencies and five job family competencies, every staff member at Penn is assigned 10 competencies.
      • The exception to this is that during FY-23, some roles
    • All roles within a job family have the same competencies, regardless of where in the University or at what level the role sits.  For example, all members of the IT job family have the same competencies:
      • Whether they work in a School or Center.
      • Regardless of their level within the job family. (What changes among the job levels is how a particular competency is demonstrated.
  • How can an employee find their job class (entry/support, individual contributor, management):
    • In Workday, click on the Profile icon in the upper right corner, then click the View Profile button.
    • On the blue navigation bar on the left-hand side of the screen, click on Job.  The Job Details screen appears.
    • On the Job Details screen, click on the job title listed to the right of Job Profile. The profile for the job title appears.
      • Scroll down the page to see the management level, job level, and job family.
      • Note that tools to better convey this information are under construction.
  • How employees can find their job competencies:
    • In Workday, click on the Profile icon in the upper right corner, then click the View Profile button.
    • On the blue navigation bar on the left-hand side of the screen, click on Job.  The Job Details screen appears.
    • On the Job Details screen, click on the job title listed to the right of Job Profile. The profile for the job title appears.
    • On the horizontal bar menu, click on Qualifications, then Competencies.  The competencies for the role will be listed Under Competencies from Other Sources.
    • Note that:
      • A few positions are still in the process of being entered into Workday and only show the five core competencies.  These positions are to be updated in the coming months, prior to midyear reviews.
      • If the employee has been through a performance cycle, Competencies may also be accessed through the Profile function using the Performance tab.