Your CFO says that revenues are up, need to hire more, but...hold on

Your best employees will be leaving!  Well, it’s time to check your succession binder - but that’s out of date and its only 6 weeks old.  Then again, that presumes you even have a plan.

In a recent 2011 SHRM poll, it’s not surprising that only 33% have a formal Succession Plan in place!  Or the other problem occurs, you have a process, but most of the time it gets moved to the back burner because it’s not the greatest priority. Companies are facing pressures to make succession and talent development a priority once again because the on-going downturn has changed every company’s employment landscape in a variety of ways. When thinking about succession management, the concept of potential successors should be viewed differently.  Rather than think about ‘who is the most likely person to take over when the lottery hits’, start thinking about talent pools and candidate slates.  These pools are really company-owned resources, across a diverse spectrum of business units and geographies.    The entire company is the foundation for an enlarged talent pipeline which minimizes risk and creates diversity. Executives are starting to think about same-day succession or talent replacements - filling newly opened position with ready now candidates…it becomes a discipline not just a process and a mindset embodied in your culture.  How do you get there? Identify Pivotal jobs, build & develop, then accelerate talent pools by building out a holistic circle to: -          Identify and assess talent -          Develop individual career plans -          Conduct annual reviews -          Move people across key roles -          Recruit new talent The ultimate question that everyone is looking to answer from the CEO down is: Do we have the right people and sufficient to achieve our strategy?  Are we looking at the business drivers?  Are we getting/developing people with the capabilities we need to drive the organization towards our objectives? Focus on getting the tools that give HR that pivotal seat at the strategic table are with data on revenue, profits and people.  HR executives are coming to the conversion armed, not with transactional data, but with creative talent data focused on the total workforce.  Combine the efforts of recruiting, performance, succession, career planning, development, compliance, compensation, and workforce planning into a unified talent management platform.