Competence isn’t a guessing game

How to avoid misjudging the capabilities of new staff

New employees arrive with varied backgrounds, levels of training, and different interpretations of what “good” looks like. By assuming new staff already know the ropes, we unintentionally create confusion and inconsistency, and preventable mistakes. This article explains why we must ensure that competence is built, checked, and supported rather than presumed.

Assumptions aren’t enough; there needs to be confirmation

Employing the right people is critical to business success. During the recruitment and selection process, many of us thoughtfully evaluate each candidate to see how well they meet our selection criteria, which highlight a key set of competencies. As a result, we feel confident enough to appoint the candidate who has demonstrated the right values, attitudes, and skills and appears well-equipped to succeed in the role.

Hiring new personnel is full of uncertainty, yet by making an appointment, we often assume that previously acquired skills and competencies will continue to be applied appropriately, that possessing specific competencies signifies competence, and that competence is synonymous with professionalism.

Such assumptions can lead us to reduce the time and resources devoted to employee induction and progress monitoring, as well as the level of support and training provided. This can have detrimental consequences, leading to errors and reducing our new employees’ ability to meet expected standards, thereby affecting our business’s reputation and subsequent growth.

What ‘Competence’ Really Means

To understand why it’s wrong to assume competence, it’s important to appreciate just what competence is. Although there is no universally accepted definition or shared understanding of competence, it is mainly considered an observable combination of vital knowledge, skills, and attributes applied to perform effectively in a specific role.

Each employee has a distinctive combination of capabilities acquired through education and work experience. The possession of this essential knowledge, skills, and attributes represents competencies; the mere possession of a set of competencies is not an indication of competence.

Competence relates to an individual’s ability to draw from their range of competencies and make appropriate value-based judgments to handle situations and tasks. Competence is thus grounded in the ability to integrate and directly apply these competencies within the context of a professional role.

Competence is variable and context-dependent, so it needs to be managed intentionally

Across professions and industries, many models of competence exist, and many organisations develop their competency frameworks, which map out the relevant knowledge and skill sets required, alongside the standards necessary to fulfil roles and responsibilities. Such frameworks represent a continuum of advancement from ‘novice’ to ‘expert’. Competency is, therefore, a variable concept that represents distinct requirements at various stages of employment and is often associated with professional grade, level of seniority, etc.  Consequently, the achievement of competence defines progress and personal development.

Achieving competence is complex; it relies on people gaining experience and becoming familiar with practice standards until they can perform effortlessly. This requires individuals to bring several aspects together and make it part of their habitual practice.

Individual staff members can often overestimate their competence, particularly when they have yet to experience the realities of the work they are employed to do. We live in a world of constant change, and this is an important consideration when making judgments about competence, because it is often assumed that skills learned and applied effectively in one context can be readily applied in another to generate the same outcomes. To meet the requirements of the job, new employees will need to unlearn, learn, relearn, adapt, and refine their values, attitudes, and skills to successfully perform in their new roles and fulfil their responsibilities.

Create standards that everyone understands

It would be remiss of us to invest in the recruitment and selection process only to assume that new employees are fully capable of meeting the job requirements. Development and attainment of competence are dynamic processes that require regular review to safeguard the quality of work, safety, collegial relationships, and the level of professional service provided to clients.

Developing competence can be attributed to good induction, systems of appraisal, ongoing training, and supportive work-based supervision that are built in appropriate ways to enhance and establish levels of competence. Monitoring progress and assessing competence are more complex and not without problems, often relying on assumptions that overlook the complexity of practice. This is especially important because we should avoid reducing competence to just observable behaviour and outcome, without paying attention to the reasoning, ethics, and values that motivate actions.

The combination of a well-designed primary induction programme over 4-6 weeks, supported by a competency-based framework for guidance, will create a process to assess and monitor competence, considering skills and professional behaviour, and gather evidence of how, for example, ethics, personal and practical wisdom, problem solving, and creativity are incorporated and demonstrated in professional roles. Together, they reveal professional and personal strengths, missing skills and qualities, and uncover support needs. If we provide relevant training and regular check-ins to gather evidence of progress and performance feedback, we do not have to second-guess the level of competence or professionalism.

Trusting judgement starts with testing assumptions

As employers, we need a competent workforce to develop and deliver high-quality products and services. Competence is shaped by education and training, and investing in these areas leads to greater efficiency, higher job satisfaction, and better employee retention. By making premature assumptions about competence, we can inadvertently fail to support the transition into the workplace. Empowering new employees to acquire new skills, strengthen existing skills, and enhance their capacity to consolidate and exemplify their competencies to others makes sense for establishing good standards of practice and ensuring quality outcomes.

For a business to succeed, the people within it need to succeed; competence and performance are inexorably linked. Assuming new employees are competent is risky; overreliance on the recruitment process alone can lead to costly errors and missed opportunities for growth. For success, competence needs to be continually cultivated and measured.

Our own judgement may be trustworthy, but we leave our organisation vulnerable if we do not test our judgement. If we want assurance of our new employee’s competence, we need to examine our induction process, its aims and purpose. We can either feel reassured that we haven’t underestimated competence or implement supportive interventions to help individuals develop essential skills and use them effectively.

Take action, and turn competence into something you can see, measure, and trust

With the right structures in place, we can stop assuming because clarity replaces guesswork, such that competence becomes what we can see, support and strengthen. Clarity facilitates the alignment of capabilities when we have competence by design rather than by assumption; we increase the likelihood of sustainable business growth.

Thanks for reading this article. It is a short excerpt from material that forms part of my current blog-to-book project, Train Better: Spend Less, which helps employers achieve staff development even when budgets are tight.

As always, your thoughts and opinions on this piece and any of my articles are welcome and graciously received.

© Dr Cheryl Whiting – April 2026