Beginning of May, I had the honor to share my thoughts on the Talent Review Trends with the Top Employers Community in Belgium.
I thought the insights could be useful for all of you who are eager to learn on Talent Review & Succession Management.
It is you, as a client or partner or colleague, who inspired me to make this shortlist. These 5 trends, however, are not easy-to-implement quick wins. All of them require a well-thought approach.
I see the following shifts happening:
- From 1 source of input, the line-manager, on the employee’s potential, aspirations, leadership skills etc, towards gathering the input of various sources. As a consequence, you significantly reduce bias in your Talent Review discussions. Examples of potential sources: the employee, a client, a mentor, …
- From Talent Review meetings spending most of the time determining the potential, risk of leaving, readiness for a next step, … for each employee in scope to Talent Review meetings spending the majority of their time reflecting on development or career actions. The use of data analytics and evidence-based questionnaires, offers us the correct data straight away at the beginning of the Talent Review Meeting, which allows you to shift the discussion towards what matters the most: what actions do we need to discuss with this employee? Eager to learn more? Register today for the Talent Review Mondays, starting in September 2021. (in Dutch)
- From exclusive focus on top management positions to a broader focus on talent target groups or talent pools. As a strategic business process, we should discuss those roles and employees at that moment in time of strategic importance for the organization. Suppose the organization would like to increase customer satisfaction of VIP clients. In that case we should focus the Talent Review discussion on those employees and managers who work with these VIP clients.
- From ‘black box’ to transparency on the outcome of Talent Review discussions. As we expect people to steer their career and development, we should explain how the Talent Review discussions could support their career evolution. If you want to learn on this topic, I recommend reading the research by Prof. Nicky Dries on ‘Transparency in Talent Management’.
- From Talent Review owned by HR to a business strategic process, owned by the business leaders. Only if the ‘why of the Talent & Organizational Review’ is clearly communicated by the executive committee, leaders will be more motivated to see the WIIFM.
I challenge you to evaluate your organization. If you were to give a score on a 10-point scale to each of these trends, what would be the final result? I was hoping you could send me your scores, and would be very grateful to further discuss.