Can You Build Effective Learning Through a Competency Model?

For quite a long time, I saw a competency model as an almost essential part of any learning system.

There are competencies.
There are levels.
There is an assessment of the current level.
There is a target level.
A gap appears between them.
So we need training.

On paper, it all makes sense.

But the more I worked with L&D systems, the more doubts I started to have about this logic.

Not because competency models are useless. Quite the opposite. A good model can be one of the most useful things in a development system.

The question is different: does a competency gap automatically mean that someone needs training?

A competency model is not a course catalog

I think this is where we often mix things up.

An organization defines what a good manager should be able to do: set goals, give feedback, make decisions, manage conflicts. Then it assesses people. Someone is at level 2, while level 4 is required.

And then a course appears: “Effective Management.”

In other words, a competency gap automatically becomes a learning gap.

But it doesn't always work that way.

Imagine a manager who knows how to give feedback but doesn't do it. Not because they don't know how. Perhaps the company simply doesn't have a culture of discussing mistakes. Or maybe they have 27 people on their team and no time for proper one-on-ones.

Another example. An employee knows the procedure but doesn't follow it because the procedure itself is inconvenient.

We can send both people to training.

Only the problem isn't really there.

That's why I increasingly like looking at development not only through competencies, but also through the reason why we want to change something in the first place.

In my work, I currently use four such grounds:

change, enable, create, and relationships.

I don't claim that these four are universal or work perfectly for every organization. For me, they are simply a way to avoid jumping straight to training.

Do we want to change existing behavior?

Do we need to enable someone with the knowledge or tools required to do their job?

Do we need to create something new — a product, process, role, or capability?

Or is the problem actually about relationships: between a manager and an employee, between teams, or between functions?

In each case, training may be useful.

But it may not be.

So when do we actually need a competency model?

I don't think every company needs a big competency model.

If an organization is small, roles are clear, managers know their people well, and development happens directly through work, a huge framework with 150 competencies may simply make things more complicated.

A competency model starts becoming useful when it becomes difficult for an organization to maintain a shared understanding of what it means to perform a role well.

Especially when there are:

• many employees;
• many managers;
• different departments;
• several levels within the same role;
• regular hiring;
• talent pools;
• career transitions;
• assessment and development processes;
• a need to compare requirements across roles.

Then the model becomes a kind of common language.

But there is an important condition.

It has to stay alive.

If the competency model was created five years ago, put into a manual, and only opened occasionally during assessments, it is no longer really a development system.

Work changes. Requirements change. Tools change. People's responsibilities change.

You can see this especially clearly now.

It is impossible to describe the competencies required for a role five years into the future and assume the job is done.

So I would even say that what matters more than having a competency model is the organization's ability to review and update it regularly.

And then comes the uncomfortable question of learning effectiveness

If we have a competency model that actually works, if we can define role requirements, see someone's current level, understand the target level, and regularly update the requirements themselves, do we really need to spend so much time on “measuring training effectiveness”?

I deliberately want to put the question a little provocatively.

In L&D, there is a strong habit of measuring program effectiveness.

How many people completed the course?

What did they remember?

Did their knowledge change?

Did their behavior change?

What impact did it have on the business?

And then we try to build increasingly sophisticated systems for proving ROI.

But if our real goal is people's development, perhaps the logic should be slightly different.

We don't necessarily need to prove that the course was effective.

We need to understand whether the thing we wanted to change actually changed.

Those are not the same thing.

If an employee really starts performing a task differently after a program — great.

If they don't, it doesn't matter very much how well they did on the test at the end of the course.

And the opposite is also true: sometimes no course is needed at all.

If the desired result is achieved through a change in the process, a prompt in the work system, support from a manager, or a good template, I don't see a problem with L&D not being able to tick the box saying “training delivered.”

Maybe we measure too much of the learning itself

I think L&D has another strange habit.

We have become very good at measuring what happens inside the LMS.

Completion.

Percent finished.

Test scores.

Hours spent.

Number of participants.

But people's actual work happens outside the LMS.

And if an employee needs to become better at dealing with customers, what ultimately matters isn't their score on a test.

What matters is what happens with the customer.

So I'm increasingly drawn to a simpler chain:

what needs to change → why does it need to change → what is preventing the change → is a learning intervention actually needed → what changed in the work.

Then we can measure the course.

So a competency model is neither the beginning nor the end

Today, I wouldn't build a learning system “from the competency model.”

I'd build it around the changes that need to happen in work.

A competency model is very useful here. It helps formalize expectations, identify gaps, connect roles, assessment, and development.

But a competency, by itself, is not a learning need.

It is simply a signal to ask the next question:

What exactly needs to change for this person — and why?

Sometimes the answer will be a course.

Sometimes practice.

Sometimes a mentor.

Sometimes a new process.

Sometimes a prompt directly inside the work system.

And sometimes we'll discover that the problem isn't with the person at all.

Perhaps that's one of the signs of a mature L&D function: it doesn't try to solve every problem with training.