Today more than ever, Learning & Development (L&D) departments are under pressure to demonstrate concrete results. It's no longer enough to just show how many hours of training were delivered or how satisfied participants were. The most strategic organizations are adopting a new key metric: Time to Competency. This metric reveals something essential: how quickly your team acquires and applies the necessary skills to perform successfully. It’s the new standard for measuring the ROI of learning and is fundamental for companies that want to grow with agility in a changing market.

In an increasingly dynamic business environment, accurately identifying the skills that truly drive growth and success is key to optimizing talent and resources. Having a clear strategy to recognize those critical competencies enables organizations to better prepare for current and future challenges. In a context where every training investment must demonstrate impact, moving from intuition to strategy is not optional—it’s urgent. What are critical skills? They are not the most popular or the most mentioned on LinkedIn. Critical skills are those that: Directly connect to business objectives. Are scarce or underdeveloped internally. Have a high impact on productivity, quality, or speed. Make the difference between an average team and a high-performing one. If that skill is missing, the business feels it. How to identify critical skills? Moving from assumptions to strategic decisions involves combining conversations with leaders, internal data analysis, and support tools such as competency frameworks or management platforms.