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How a competency framework transforms company values into measurable performance
TL;DR: A values-to-behavior competency framework turns culture from theory into measurable performance. Here’s how one life sciences company made it work.
We talk a lot about values in business. Companies proudly showcase them on websites, in onboarding sessions and across office walls. But ask employees what those values look like in action, and you’ll often get blank stares.
It’s not that employees don’t care about values – they just can’t connect the dots between “innovation” or “patient-first” and what that means on a Tuesday afternoon when deadlines are tight and priorities are competing. At one life sciences company, “collaboration” was plastered on coffee mugs, but cross-functional teams were so siloed that trial timelines slipped simply because groups weren’t speaking the same language.
That’s because values, while critical, are only half the story. To truly guide culture and performance, they need to be translated into observable, measurable behaviors that employees can understand, practice and see rewarded. That’s where a competency framework comes in.
Recommended: How To Align Your Corporate Values With Behaviors
The challenge: values without a roadmap
Recently, we partnered with a global pharmaceutical manufacturer at a critical moment of transformation. Leadership had articulated a strong vision and clear values, but employees still struggled to see how those values translated into their day-to-day work.
At the same time, performance conversations varied widely across teams. Some managers focused heavily on results; others leaned on subjective measures like “attitude” or “fit.” Employees wanted clarity, fairness and a sense that the organization truly lived the values it espoused.
The risk was real. Without a unifying approach, performance management could become inconsistent and demotivating, undermining both culture and strategy.
The strategy: turn values into a blueprint
The goal wasn’t to create a generic list of nice-sounding traits. It was to design a values-based behavioral competency framework that would:
- Clarify expectations: Translate values into specific, observable behaviors.
- Unify performance management: Give managers and employees a consistent language for feedback and development.
- Strengthen alignment: Ensure individual goals and behaviors tied directly to organizational strategy.
- Embed culture into systems: Make values visible in talent management, recognition and leadership development.
In short, the framework needed to become a blueprint for culture in action.
Recommended: Hiring for alignment: 5 tips to infuse values into the hiring process
The approach: collaborative and grounded
We worked with leadership and HR to design the framework through a deliberate, collaborative process:
- Listening deeply: Conducted interviews and workshops to surface challenges and aspirations from leaders and employees.
- Mapping personas: Considered the perspectives of individual contributors, managers, and executives to ensure relevance across all levels.
- Testing and refining: Used interactive exercises to pressure-test proposed competencies and ensure they resonated in real-world scenarios.
- Tying to values: Anchored every competency to an existing company value, creating a direct link between cultural ideals and daily behaviors.
- Planning for integration: Developed a roadmap to embed the framework into performance management, learning & development and recognition systems.
Involving people early built advocacy. When the framework launched, managers weren’t encountering it for the first time – they had shaped it. That ownership increased adoption and reduced resistance.
The process itself became a powerful cultural moment – engaging leaders and employees in shaping what success should truly look like.
The outcome: clarity and alignment
The result was a shortlist of core competencies expressed in clear, actionable language and directly tied to company values.
- Managers now had a consistent rubric to guide feedback and performance discussions.
- Employees gained clarity on what was expected and how success would be recognized.
- Leadership teams felt aligned and confident that the framework could support both accountability and cultural cohesion.
Early signs are encouraging. As performance conversations become more consistent, employees are feeling more connected to the mission and leaders have a clearer tool for decision-making and talent development.
Measuring impact and iterating over time
A competency framework is only effective if it drives real change. We built a plan to track adoption and performance over time, including:
- Manager adoption rates: tracking how consistently managers use the framework in performance reviews.
- Employee understanding: pulse surveys to gauge clarity of expectations and perceived fairness in evaluations.
- Behavioral shifts: monitoring key indicators such as cross-team collaboration rates or on-time project delivery.
- Cultural alignment: annual engagement survey to assess how strongly employees feel the values are reflected in daily work.
The lesson: competencies are culture in action
A competency framework isn’t just HR jargon – it’s a cultural compass. When thoughtfully designed, it brings values to life, ensures fairness and drives alignment between individual performance and organizational goals.
The biggest lesson: the power of the process itself. By involving leaders and employees in co-creating the framework, the organization built not only a tool for performance, but also ownership, trust and alignment.
Because at the end of the day, culture isn’t defined by what’s written on the wall, it’s defined by the behaviors we encourage, reward and live every day.
FAQs
What is a competency framework?
A tool that translates company values into specific, observable skills and behaviors employees can practice and managers can evaluate.
Why should values be behaviorally defined?
Because without behavioral clarity, values stay theoretical and don’t influence day-to-day work.
How do you build a competency framework?
Through employee and leader interviews, cross-level collaboration, iterative testing and integration planning.
What’s the ROI of this work?
Improved performance clarity, reduced manager subjectivity and stronger cultural cohesion.
Ready to transform your values into measurable performance?
Let’s build your competency framework.
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