As we progress further into 2025, hybrid and remote work models are no longer a trend—they are the new norm. However, as remote work offers new levels of flexibility and latitude, many companies struggle with a typically more neglected aspect of it: How can we track and manage the skills of this distributed workforce?
Our approach to managing the workforce has changed with an increase in hybrid and remote teams. Long-established systems for monitoring employee performance and advancement, which rely on physical supervision and in-person training, are simply inappropriate in a remote environment. With these changes, Organizations require a comprehensive solution to identify, manage , and grow the capabilities of their workforce. This is where a Competency Manager is essential.
In this blog, we will understand why hybrid and remote teams of 2025 need a Competency Manager to thrive. We’ll discuss the challenges businesses face when managing a fragmented workforce, the risks of failing to track competencies, and how CABEM’s Competency Manager can address these challenges. Whether you’re already managing remote teams or implementing a hybrid work plan, read on to learn how competency management can improve productivity, compliance, and employee engagement in today’s working world.
The Workforce Has Changed & Your Management Strategy Should Too
The world of work has changed irreversibly. Nowadays, teams are spread across different states and time zones, where traditional management strategies become ineffective. In fact, more than 70% of businesses have adopted remote or hybrid work, and it’s evident that management needs to change. Continuing to stick with outdated systems and approaches may compromise your business.
Here’s why you must change your management strategy to support hybrid and remote teams:
- Teams Spread Across States or Time Zones: As employees work from different places, it becomes harder to measure their progress and consistently support them. Managers can lose sight of employees ‘ performance without a system that identifies and manages competencies.
- Reduced In-Person Supervision: Remote teams can easily get out of sync without daily face-to-face interaction. Managers find it harder to track progress this way efficiently, making it harder to identify issues or provide timely feedback.
- Inconsistent Training and Skill Development: Training is often inconsistent in a remote environment. Without a structured competency management system, employees may not be provided with the right development opportunities to succeed in their job roles.
- Compliance Gaps Harder to Detect Early: Compliance gaps are harder to identify in remote teams, particularly if employees work across different jurisdictions or industries. Without some sort of systematic tracking, you risk forgetting some key compliance requirements.
These challenges emphasize the necessity of implementing a Competency Manager who can provide your team with a framework to grow and develop. Now, let’s consider the risks you run if you don’t clearly understand your team’s capabilities.
Note: Interested in learning more about managing competencies in hybrid teams? Check out our blog, “Competency Management in a Hybrid Workforce,” to learn how to track and develop employee skills for success in today’s work-from-home model.
The Risk of Not Knowing Your Team’s Capabilities
One of the most significant risks of managing a hybrid or remote team is that we assume employees have the capabilities required to do their jobs well. Getting stuck in the mindset that everything is okay until something goes wrong is easy.
Here are some of the key risks of not knowing your team’s capabilities:
- Managers Assuming Employees Are Up-to-Date on Skills: Managers may assume that their team members are participating in required training and on-the-job skills development, but this assumption could be incorrect without regular testing of knowledge. A shortage of Skills can lead to underperformance and inefficiencies.
- Audits Revealing Unqualified Staff: During audits or compliance checks, several businesses may be shocked when they realize their employees are not qualified according to their needs. This can lead to delays, fines, and even damage to the company’s reputation.
- Compliance Violations Due to Poor Documentation: Adherence to regulations is critical in various sectors, particularly those with rigorous certification and credentialing requirements. Without a centralized tracking system, it’s hard to miss renewals and alerts when compliance gaps are missed, leading to significant violations.
Without tracking competencies and certifications, your company is exposed to unnecessary risk. Therefore, a Competency Manager is important to keep everyone oriented. Now, let’s see how CABEM’s Competency Manager can help solve these problems.
Note: For more information, read our blog, “Competency Management System: Why Your Organization Needs One!”, and discover how achieving a system can improve skill tracking, maximize compliance, and increase team performance.
5 Ways CABEM’s Competency Manager Solves Remote Work Challenges
In a hybrid or remote work environment, competency management can seem like a daunting task. However, with CABEM’s Competency Manager, companies can manage through this process and provide solutions for their most significant issues associated with a remote workforce.
Here’s how:
- Centralized Competency Tracking
- Role-Based Competency Frameworks
- Automated Progress and Expiration Alerts
- Audit-Ready Reporting
- Remote Access for Supervisors and Staff
1. Centralized Competency Tracking
Monitoring employees’ skills can be difficult when they work from different zones. CABEM’s Competency Manager unifies all competency data in one platform and allows managers real-time visibility into employee development progress, training history, and qualifications. It removes the use of spreadsheets, emails and fragmented systems.
- Real-time insight into employee skills
- All data is available in one place, which makes it easier to access
- Monitor progress across all the teams and departments
2. Role-Based Competency Frameworks
Every role in your company has its own set of competencies. Create role-specific frameworks with CABEM’s Competency Manager so your employees get the proper training and development relevant to their job functions. This targeted approach leads to more effective skill development and performance improvement.
- Modifiable competence frameworks according to functional roles
- Defined career paths for employees across multiple roles
- Targeted learning resources that focus on essential skills
3. Automated Progress and Expiration Alerts
One of the most challenging tasks a manager faces with remote teams is keeping them current on training, certifications, and compliance. CABEM’s Competency Manager tracks progress automatically and alerts organizations of certifications expiring, ensuring employees are always aware of their requirements and organizations are never left open to compliance gaps.
- Reminders for certification renewals and training deadlines are sent automatically
- Track progress towards competencies with ease
- Proactive alerts ensure deadlines will never be missed
4. Audit-Ready Reporting
Many industries undergo periodic audits, and compliance reporting can be an extra headache for remote teams. CABEM’s Competency Manager allows you to create audit-ready reports easily. These reports give you an overview of employee capabilities, certificates, and training status, keeping you fully auditable at any time.
- Faster access to current compliance reports
- Track employee qualifications comprehensively
- Facilitates an easy audit process with all documents in one place
5. Remote Access for Supervisors and Staff
In a remote or hybrid environment, managers and employees need access to competency data anywhere. Supervisors and staff can track progress, access training materials, and update their specific competencies remotely with CABEM’s Competency Manager. This allows development to continue uninterrupted when employees are working from multiple locations.
- Firm remote access for managers and employees
- Mobile-friendly platform for freedom and flexibility
- Improved collaboration by having a single source of truth
Why 2025 Is the Time to Act for Competency
The need for competency mastery has become increasingly undeniable, particularly with the unprecedented speed of global accelerators such as remote and hybrid working. A report from Gartner at the start of 2024 indicated that 82% of organizations have already adopted these hybrid work models, or intend to adopt them by the end of 2025, a significant increase from just 30% of such companies in 2020. With this shift, organizations face the core challenges of upskilling employees, ensuring regulatory compliance, and managing a scalable workforce.
Here’s why it’s time to act:
- Increasing Compliance Pressure
- Talent Retention Tied to Transparent Growth Paths
- Demand for Scalable Digital Solutions
1. Increasing Compliance Pressure
The digital transformation and the newfound acceptance of remote work models in various industries have added layers of complexity and stringency to compliance. Tightening regulatory requirements are emerging in many sectors , especially highly regulated sectors.
- A 2024 report from Deloitte states that 85% of companies named compliance and risk management one of their top three priorities for the next three years.
- With GDPR updates and other data protection regulations introduced worldwide, it is now more important than ever for businesses to ensure that their employees are trained and compliant with the latest regulations.
For example:
- In healthcare, failing to keep the appropriate certifications for their workforce members can result in up to $50,000 in fines per violation (Healthcare Insurance News, 2024).
- In manufacturing, for example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has implemented more rigorous safety training practices, which can incur penalties of up to $136,532 for serious violations.
Tracking employee certifications, training, and compliance has become an even bigger challenge as remote and hybrid teams are spread over many locations or jurisdictions. However, centralizing this information via a Competency Manager can make it easy for businesses to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements without facing the risk of being penalized in law.
2. Talent Retention Tied to Transparent Growth Paths
In today’s job market, employee retention remains a significant challenge. As per a 2023 report by Gallup, 52% of employees said that professional development opportunities are one of the most important factors when selecting an employer. Further, 40% of employees stated they would quit their current job if their employer did not give them clear opportunities for career progression.
The trend is even stronger among younger generations:
- Pew Research (2024) reported that 78% of millennials and 72% of Gen Z employees seek structured career development programs to grow within their organization.
In remote or hybrid settings, employees can feel like they are missing out on their organization’s growth arc. Without routine in-person contact and transparent development pathways, workers may find it difficult to see how they can climb the ladder in their careers. A Competency Manager can help solve this challenge by providing employees with a clear view of their competencies and progress toward career advancement.
A Competency Management System will outline an individualized development pathway, allowing employees to identify how to expand their capabilities. This keeps employees motivated, increases engagement, and decreases turnover, all essential parts of retaining top talent.
3. Demand for Scalable Digital Solutions
As organizations grow and workforce dynamics shift, retaining information through outdated methods (spreadsheets or manual tracking) becomes inefficient and unsustainable. According to a 2024 Workforce Report by McKinsey, 59% of executives call scaling digital solutions one of the foremost challenges they face in managing the workforce, particularly in terms of developing and tracking employee skill sets.
- According to IDC’s 2023 Global Workforce Management Survey, 76% of companies seek integrated workforce management solutions to manage employee skill development and compliance tracking.
Organizations demand flexible, cloud-based solution platforms that will scale with their businesses, particularly as remote teams extend across multiple geographies. CABEM’s Competency Manager offers a solution that can grow with— and is flexible enough to meet— any size organization’s needs.
So that businesses can meet the demands of employees with real-time tracking, automatic alerts, and simple reporting without the need for outdated, slow-paced systems that can be prone to error.
Bring Structure, Visibility, and Compliance to Your Distributed Workforce with CABEM Today!
In the coming years, as hybrid and remote work continue to grow, effectively managing a distributed workforce will be as important as ever. As teams operate across different locations, tracking competencies, ensuring compliance, and providing uniform skill development can become a struggle. However, by using CABEM Competency Manager, organizations can take charge of their workforce development more efficiently, scalable, and compliantly.
Competency Manager enables organizations to consolidate competency tracking, automate progress monitoring, and deliver audit-ready reports to ensure teams have the appropriate skills to achieve business objectives. It allows transparency, clear upward mobility for employees, and a systematized methodology for compliance, which is crucial to attracting and retaining top talent while navigating the competitive landscape.
Now’s the time to act if you want to optimize your remote and hybrid teams, ensure compliance, and elevate employee development. CABEM’s solutions are tailored to your needs to support process efficiencies and a skilled workforce that is an asset to your business and organizational success.
Want to develop your team’s skills and prepare them for success? Contact CABEM today for more information on how we can help your organization!
FAQs
How can we improve the level of competency in our team?
To enhance competency, it is essential to implement a systematic approach that encompasses continuous training, periodic evaluations, and personalized training materials. Using a competency management system like CABEM, you can be sure that employees are always gaining the skills they require to be successful.
Why is competence important for success?
Competence is about ensuring that employees can do their jobs competently and contribute to the organization’s overall success. Competent employees tend to be higher-performing, more engaged, and better able to drive innovation.
What are the leadership management challenges of managing remote teams?
The challenges associated with remote team management include a lack of visibility, inconsistent training, and difficulty tracking performance. A Competency Manager can help you with these challenges by providing centralized tracking, progress monitoring, and compliance reporting.
What are the biggest challenges businesses face when managing a remote workforce?
Some of the significant challenges are ensuring compliance, adherence to uniform training standards, performance monitoring, and engagement. These issues enable CABEM’s Competency Manager to offer comprehensive solutions and assist businesses in effectively managing their remote teams.