You Have Hired the Best, What About the Rest?

In the past few postings I have focused on the critical nature of talent acquisition. Thank you for your comments and questions. Among the questions I’ve been asked, the most frequent theme is around what to do about current talent. If you make the effort to find my own candidates (relationship recruiting), rigorously assess candidates (structured interviewing), and on board and integrate effectively, what should or can you do about my current talent, which is variable?

The next few posts will address the issue of Talent Review. Creating integrated and relevant talent plans is critical to driving organizational success. 

Current State 

Many organizations are in varying states of talent review. But typically talent reviews are not an intentional, strategic focused activity.

The first issue to address is the often disjointed, disintegrated manner in which talent reviews take place. Talent reviews often take place at the division level and are sometimes anchored by the enterprise strategy, but more often are anchored by a more narrow focus on division goals. 

The second issue is the poor quality of reviews. Unless the review is integrated and anchored to the organizational strategy, the review will continue to be of variable quality and the value will be subjective. Just as unstructured interviews are a poor predictor of employee success; an unstructured talent review is a poor predictor of business unit and organizational success. 

The third issue is that talent reviews many times are simply not tied to the strategy. 

Finally, and at the risk of alienating some of my HR colleagues, the support for executing talent plans is lacking in HR. To be fair, it is a mutual line and HR responsibility, but this is an area where HR can demonstrate significant value and turn the dial on organizational performance.

The Path Forward

Ownership of the Review Rests with the Business Unit Level Leader 

With the assistance of the HR Business Partner (HRBP), a simple and standardized set of assessment templates, and with a high level of CEO involvement the business unit leader (BUL) is empowered to own the talent review and her/his success is optimized. The BUL is provided a structured set of templates by their HRBP (more detail in a future post, or email me).

The role of the HRBP and the Head of HR are critical in creating an environment of success for the business unit leader, providing data, having preliminary discussions, and preparing the business unit leader for the review meeting. (Note: if your HRBP does not have a relationship of trust and respect with the business unit leader, your chances of success are nearly non-existent.) The templates include a maximum of one page for each of the following topical areas:

• The CEO’s top 5 questions for your business
• Employee engagement
• Diversity and Inclusion
• Unit high potentials
• Talent pipeline
• Your succession plan/risks
• People priorities on a 12-36 month time horizon
• Proposed action plan 

The Review Meeting

At least annually, and more often if required, there is a structured conversation with the BUL, the HRBP, the Head of HR, and the CEO. The basic under pinning of the conversation are:

Limited participation- again only the CEO, BUL, the head of HR, and the HRBP are in attendance.

It is not a presentation! - it is a discussion anchored by the business strategy. The prepared slide deck is used to inform the discussion it is not used as a presentation. 

Active CEO Involvement- we all know CEO involvement drives urgency. The CEO provides, in advance, 3-5 issues to be addressed by the business leader.

Clear expectations for each participant 

• CEO- prepares 3-5 talent related questions in advance, challenges the business unit leader around talent issues always anchored from the organizational strategy lens

• BUL- assesses and prepares a holistic picture of critical talent areas in their business, proposes solutions, and action plans

• Head of HR- probes on talent areas and provides suggestions for improvement and strategic resources to address areas of concern/improvement

• HRBP- provides support to business unit leader. The HRBP should provide perspective and support the business unit leader in preparing for the discussion by asking challenging questions, offering potential solutions, and helping to ensure the final discussion deck is flawless and “paints a picture” for the CEO.

In first iteration of the review the initial meeting should be around 60 minutes. The following year, the meeting will need to be expanded to include time to review the previous years’ actions.

Finally, the cost of this annual review is minimal, creating a potentially very high ROI. We won’t explore the multiple calculations and variables in this post. The organizational cost of sub optimal talent is well known and documented. Assuming the Head of HR and the CEO each contribute 2 hours to the review, and the HRBP and BUL each contribute 10 hours to the review- the estimated cost per review is less than $5000. A solid investment.

Key Outputs 

Well-executed talent reviews create a catalogue of organizationally relevant talent priorities that can be cascaded throughout the organization. They combine critical talent elements of talent acquisition (discussion of talent pipeline), succession planning, and HIPO resource allocations. The integrated approach helps facilitate alignment and enables HR to achieve a more cohesive and business driven approach to talent management. Finally, the standardization of its application makes this talent review mechanism simple to roll up to an organization-wide talent review that is easily digestible by the organizations Board of Directors.