How Competency Mapping Improves Workforce Development

5 insights from HR and L&D professionals

Competency mapping is changing the way organizations build and develop their teams, creating clearer paths for leadership growth and greater overall satisfaction. In this article, HR and L&D professionals share 5 real-world insights into how strategic competency mapping drives stronger performance, enhances employee engagement, and transforms workforce development from the ground up.
 

• Competency Mapping Boosts Leadership and Team Satisfaction
• Map Skills to Boost Growth and Retention
• Clarify Competencies to Strengthen Career Paths
• Align Skills With Business Needs for Success
• Tailored Competency Frameworks Strengthen Leadership Pipelines

Competency Mapping Boosts Leadership and Team Satisfaction

Through systematic determination of the skills and behaviors that enable success in each role, competency mapping has played a fundamental role in our organization toward the development of its workforce. Competency mapping in this way provided us with an opportunity to align the individual's abilities with the company's long-term strategic goals. A concrete example of competency mapping was conducted for our leadership team to identify key competencies such as emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, communication, and decision-making.

Having mapped the competencies, we were able to identify developmental areas for our leaders, especially in emotional intelligence and managing high-stress situations. Consequently, we designed a leadership development program that included coaching, workshops, and peer feedback. This program ensured development for the leaders to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, fostering a collaborative and effective group of teams.

The initiative was quantitatively assessed and outcomes were measured. Post-program assessments reflected a 20% increase in leadership effectiveness scores through internal surveys and a marked increase in employee engagement as leaders who participated became more empathetic, communicative, and supportive, directly leading to a 15% increase in team satisfaction. 

The competency mapping exercise has, therefore, improved not only the leadership capacity in the organization but also fostered a more conducive and productive working environment.
 

Lee Baldwin, HR & Payroll Expert | Head of Managed, Pay Check Limited

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Map Skills to Boost Growth and Retention

When I joined Workday three years ago, we embarked on a journey to become a skills-based organization. This wasn't just about acknowledging the importance of skills; it was about fundamentally reframing our workforce strategy. 

We started by asking a crucial question: what business challenges can skills help solve? This led us to spearhead a skills-based talent management approach with a clear mandate to enhance employee growth, boost retention, and ultimately drive greater organizational agility.

Competency mapping, or as we like to call it, skills mapping, has been foundational to this transformation. By clearly defining skills, understanding the relationships between skills, and mapping skills to jobs, we’ve been able to deliver a better employee experience. We used AI, manager feedback, and executive approval to confirm the top 10-12 critical skills for jobs at Workday, and leveraged Skills Cloud, Workday's AI-driven skills ontology, to recommend skills to employees to populate their profiles. Today, I'm proud to say that 100% of Workday's jobs are mapped to job-critical skills, and 90% of employee profiles include verified, updated skills. 

Skills mapping laid the foundation for our skills-based hiring and development practices. We use the job-critical skills to drive consistency and precision in our hiring process, which has led to a 32% decrease in time to fill, an 11% increase in offer acceptance, and a 23% increase in candidate NPS (Net promoter score).  

By leveraging AI and the skills data embedded in employee profiles, we’re also able to deliver personalized recommendations for learning content, mentors, gigs, and job opportunities. The engagement speaks for itself - over two-thirds of Workday employees find new opportunities through Career Hub, a one-stop-shop on the Workday platform, and over 5,000 employees have participated in a gig, or short-term assignment. This skills-driven approach has resulted in a 42% higher internal transfer rate and a 33% decrease in attrition among participating employees.
 

Josh Tarr, Director of Skills Based Strategy, Workday

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Clarify Competencies to Strengthen Career Paths

As an L&D leader, I see competency mapping as the connective thread through all of our learning and development efforts, serving as the foundation for expectations across the organization. 

We’ve mapped our individual contributor and manager career ladders to Radford levels, but we’ve also made them our own by clarifying the competencies in language that resonate with our company culture. This laid the groundwork for creating targeted learning experiences in our LMS, while making the competencies central to our individual development plans (IDPs), ensuring alignment around growth expectations. 

We've also integrated the competencies throughout onboarding, aiming to reduce ramp-up time from four weeks to two and boost completion rates to over 80%. 

The goal is for ICs and managers to have focused, actionable development conversations, making career development feel more tangible. 

Competency mapping is the backbone of a strategy that ensures our people are not only ready for today’s challenges, but are equipped to lead the organization into the future.
 

Grace Rauth, L&D Manager, Chronosphere

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Align Skills with Business Needs for Success

Early on, we realized that keeping top talent required more than just typical training. It needed a thorough, role-specific knowledge of what success looked like. We started a competency mapping project as the business grew in order to better match the abilities of our staff with our changing business objectives.

To describe the precise technical, interpersonal, and leadership skills needed in each area, we worked closely with team leads. After collecting those standards, we performed a company-wide skills gap analysis to determine the areas that most required support and development.

We used those results to provide custom online courses, training sessions, and mentorship. Our goal was to improve competencies in technical skills, project management, and leadership.

As a result, this improved cross-functional collaboration, as employees understood their strengths, which led to an increase in their overall productivity. Each employee had the tools and support to grow in their role. This led to both individual and organizational success.
 

Barbara Marzari, Communication and Engagement Strategy Director, Sociabble

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Tailored Competency Frameworks Strengthen Leadership Pipelines

Competency mapping transformed workforce development across all leadership levels in our organization. We began by building a differentiated competency framework for frontline, mid-level, and senior leaders — clarifying not just what skills were needed, but how those skills should show up in each role. 

For example, while communication is critical at every level, we defined what effective communication looks like for a new manager versus a senior executive, making the competencies relevant and actionable for each group. We then mapped these competencies to our talent processes, from hiring and onboarding to leadership development and succession planning, so every leader had a clear view of expectations and growth paths. 

This intentional approach helped us identify gaps such as frontline leaders who needed more coaching skills and senior leaders benefited from advanced strategic thinking modules. We launched targeted programs for each level, including peer learning circles for new managers and executive coaching for senior leaders.

Within nine months, we saw manager engagement scores rise by 21%, internal promotions for leaders at all levels increase by 25%, and turnover among high-potential leaders drop by 32%. By making competencies visible and tailored to each leadership tier, we empowered leaders to own their growth and created a stronger, more agile leadership pipeline for the organization. Competency mapping, when done properly, shows people that a company values them and is invested in their growth.
 

Anu Mandapati, Fractional Chief Culture & Talent Officer

Brett Farmiloe is CEO & Founder of Featured.