In today’s skills-based economy, competence is currency. Yet for many employees, especially younger generations, skills gap anxiety is a real problem, affecting confidence and performance. A recent study from Attensi reveals a quiet crisis undermining workforce performance: skills masking.
Skills masking is when employees hide or downplay skills gaps to avoid judgment or negative consequences. It’s not a fringe issue. In our survey of 2,000 employees across the UK and U.S., 58% admitted to masking their skills gaps. Nearly half said they’ve pretended to understand tasks they didn’t, and 40% avoid asking for help even when unsure how to proceed.
When employees feel unsafe admitting what they don’t know, they can’t grow. They struggle to improve. And organizations are left with a workforce that lacks the mastery needed to truly excel. Skills gaps are business risks.
The Onboarding Disconnect
The problem starts early. Our data shows that 82% of employees believe their onboarding programs need improvement, especially younger workers. Among 18-24-year-olds, 81% say poor onboarding affects their ability to retain information, and 60% say it negatively impacts their confidence.
Too often, onboarding is treated as a compliance exercise — a checklist to complete, not a foundation to build skills mastery. When new hires are overwhelmed, under-supported or afraid to ask questions, they begin their journey not with confidence, but with concealment.
This is what we call skill set anxiety: a persistent fear of being underqualified. It’s especially pronounced among younger workers who frequently worry about not being good enough for their roles, and it becomes a barrier to performance, engagement and retention.
The Cost of Concealment
When employees mask their gaps, organizations suffer. Mistakes go uncorrected. Learning stalls. Feedback loops break down. Performance is hindered and people are more likely to leave their jobs.
Learning by Doing, Without the Fear
The good news is that technology is catching up to human psychology. We’ve seen firsthand how simulations powered by artificial intelligence (AI) can create safe, immersive environments where employees can rehearse tough conversations, practice decision-making and build real competence without fear of embarrassment. Many employees, especially younger ones, want AI-powered tools to practice critical skills in a safe environment.
Organizations like YMCA Dallas and Circle K are already seeing measurable results from gamified, simulation-based onboarding, including reduced turnover and faster skill mastery. When onboarding is designed for mastery, not masking, everyone wins.
From Cost Center to Revenue Driver
In our skills-based economy, L&D teams are revenue drivers. Yet many still struggle to secure the resources and budget they need. To change this, L&D must stop measuring activity and start measuring outcomes.
We must define what great onboarding looks like and build systems that track progress toward that vision. Without the right data and insight tools to analyze and communicate impact, the true value of L&D teams remains invisible. If we want onboarding to be seen as a revenue driver — not a cost center — we need to move beyond activity metrics and start measuring what really matters: confidence, competence, mastery of skills and long-term performance.
Designing for Confidence, Not Just Compliance
The next generation of onboarding must be inclusive, data-driven and psychologically safe. That means:
Normalizing not-knowing: Create environments where asking for help is a strength. Leaders have to set the tone for others to feel safe. One way to do this is to train leaders to share an example of when they didn’t know something, especially if speaking up about it would have saved them from failure. It needs to be known that lacking information or a skill isn’t a problem — hiding it is.
Whether through other forums like anonymous Q&A tools or learning retros, what matters is building structured opportunities for employees to admit uncertainty safely.
Leveraging AI and gamification: Knowledge alone doesn’t translate into performance; it has to be applied. Many organizations are now using scenario-based simulations or digital role-plays to let employees practice before performing. We’ve seen retail chains recently replace classroom lectures with interactive customer simulations, cutting time to proficiency and reducing early turnover.
By building onboarding programs that allow safe repetition, new hires get the opportunity to repeat and reflect on realistic challenges until they reach true competence.
Designing for all generations: A multigenerational workforce demands flexibility. A hospitality group found success by pairing microlearning modules for younger, mobile-first workers with structured mentoring and small group workshops for more experienced hires. The blended approach produced a measurable increase in engagement across age groups.
Design multiple paths to mastery, combining digital self-paced content with human connection, so that learners of all backgrounds can build confidence at their own speed.
Aligning metrics with business outcomes: Executives don’t invest in “training completions,” they invest in performance. To visualize progress, a financial services organization integrated onboarding analytics into its HR dashboards to track how early learning correlated with sales, retention and customer satisfaction. By presenting these metrics in business terms, the L&D team secured new funding and strategic recognition.
Platforms that deliver training must also be able to show the impact of its programs. Metrics like time to competence, confidence growth, retention intent and performance improvement should be simple for L&D leaders to track and report on, in language that resonates with the C-suite.
Conclusion
Onboarding needs to be more than just a process because skills drive business success. When we create workplaces where employees can ask for help and practice in safe environments, they gain the tools to become their best. And when L&D teams measure outcomes, not just activity, they prove the value of their work as a revenue driving engine.
