The need for employee upskilling isn’t breaking news. Industry experts and thought leaders have long touted the importance of upskilling in keeping pace with market shifts and changes, and businesses are listening. LinkedIn Learning’s 2024 Workplace Learning Report found that in the next six months, 90% of global executives surveyed during Dec. 2023 said they plan to either increase or keep steady their investment in learning and development (L&D), including for upskilling and reskilling initiatives.

However, businesses that have succeeded in deploying large-scale upskilling initiatives are still few and far between. The research also found that, for the third year in a row, most “weighty” initiatives (defined as expensive, one-size-fits-all programs that aim to reskill hundreds or thousands of employees at once) are still in the activation stages, and each year, fewer than 5% of those programs have advanced far enough to measure success. This shows the need for more personalized learning experiences that can be delivered across large, dispersed workforces.

Here, we’ll explore how competency modeling can help inform more personalized upskilling that, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), can be delivered quickly and at scale. But first, let’s take a moment to consider competency modeling in more detail.

What Is a Competency Model?

According to Training Industry, a competency model is a “framework for defining the skill and knowledge requirements of a job. It is a collection of competencies that define the skills and abilities that enable successful job performance.”

Alyssa Kaszycki, learning product manager at Training Industry, says we can consider competency models as “rubrics outlining the skills and abilities needed to drive success in a given job role.”

Competency models grew out of the traditional job analytic or work analytic processes, which take a job and boil it down to hundreds of tasks, responsibilities and job duties, mapping those onto the KSAOs (the knowledge, skills, abilities [and] other characteristics), that employees need to perform those tasks, and in the 1990s, competency modeling emerged as a way to simplify that process,” says Amy DuVernet, Ph.D., CPTM, Training Industry’s director of training and development.

Competency models can be designed for individual job roles, functions or, in some cases, for an entire profession. For example, the Training Manager Competency Model™ grew out of years of research into what makes a great training organization. (See Figure 1.)

While the model is comprehensive in outlining the competencies necessary for great training management, learning leaders responsible for one specific function within training management (e.g., managing technology or training administration) can focus on developing the competencies most applicable to their individual job role.

Competency Modeling and Skills Mapping: What’s the Difference?

Although the terms competency modeling and skills mapping are often used interchangeably, they do have slight differences in their approach to identifying skills gaps.

Competency modeling focuses more on the skills an employee needs to be successful in the future (i.e., the “desired state”), whereas skills mapping focuses more on identifying an employee’s current skills and abilities (i.e., the “current state”). Both of these processes are important in identifying skills gaps to address through your training and development efforts, Kaszycki says. However, competency models are an important tool for proactively bridging future skills gaps.

Tips to Get Started

Creating a competency model from the ground up can be daunting for even experienced training managers. Unfortunately, this can stop many training managers from even getting started, Kaszycki says. Scott Himes, CPTM, principal at Medallion Partners, agrees that getting started can be overwhelming. “So, I think before you do anything, you need to get stakeholder buy-in.”

It’s important that stakeholders recognize the importance of competency modeling, because “There’s nothing worse as a learning leader than taking the time to invest in something and then it never gets used,” Himes says. To gain buy-in, reiterate to stakeholders how competency modeling can uncover future skills gaps, and share how you plan to use competency models to inform your upskilling initiatives moving forward.

Internal mobility is another business case for competency models. They can help outline the skills an employee needs to develop to take the next step in their career and offer greater transparency into employees’ career trajectories within the organization, Himes says.

Once you’ve gained stakeholder buy-in, you’re ready to begin the competency modeling process. Here are some simple steps to begin building a competency model for a given job role:

Identify competencies.

Assuming you already have a clear job description available for the role (if not, you’ll need to write one or obtain it from the employee’s manager), work to identify around 15 competencies that are critical for success in the role.

There are a few different ways you can identify these competencies, including:

• Interviewing subject matter experts (SMEs) and people in similar roles: It can help to interview SMEs as well as individuals in similar job roles to hear their thoughts on the competencies needed to be successful in the job role. In a recent episode of The Business of Learning, Brian Blecke, partner and senior performance consultant at Actio Learning, shared that having a framework in place before you conduct an interview. He also suggests having a clear plan for documenting the results of the interview. Interviews can be conducted in group settings, as focus groups or individually. “There are a lot of different ways [to conduct interviews] and sometimes you’ll want to do more than one,” Blecke says.
• On-the-job observation: Another way to identify competencies is to observe people in similar roles on the job, Blecke says. This can help you see the real-world ins and outs of a given job role and identify competencies needed to execute specific tasks.
• Leveraging AI: While helpful, interviews and on-the-job observation can be difficult to deploy at scale. AI can help scale your efforts: Simply provide a generative AI tool like ChatGPT or Google Gemini with the job description and ask it to curate around 15 competencies necessary for success in the job role. “I think the reason why AI is so great for competency modeling is because competency modeling is already by definition an iterative process,” Kaszycki explains. As an L&D leader, your job is drafting a list of competencies that will be reviewed and adjusted by SMEs, so AI can help you generate a rough list of competencies that your SMEs can fine-tune later on.

Think ahead.

Competency models can’t help bridge future skills gaps if they’re not future focused. To create a future-focused competency model, Himes suggests looking at the skills and abilities a job role requires now, and then envisioning how those will shift five years from now. After all, there are skills that an employee will need in the future that they don’t necessarily need today, and competency modeling can help map those out. For example, a job role today may not require AI skills to be successful, but AI skills may be critical for success in that same job role five years from now, Himes says.

Start small.

As with any L&D effort, it’s important to approach competency modeling strategically. You likely won’t need to create a competency model for every job role within your organization, Himes says. Start small by focusing on high-priority job roles, such as those you see shifting or requiring upskilling for future success.

Personalized Upskilling at Scale

The skills employees need to be successful continue to evolve alongside technological advancements, market shifts and other factors. Competency modeling plays an important role in mapping out the future skills employees need to thrive and can help identify key gaps that you can address through targeted learning interventions.

Although competency modeling can seem like a daunting task, remember: By starting small, leveraging AI and working with SMEs, you’ll be well on your way to creating impactful competency models for your organization.