DETERMINE OBJECTIVE INDICATORS
Reviewing the organization's talent required viewing it as a snapshot in time. This approach provided a current pulse on workforce talent and systematically determined gaps in an objective way, informing the development of the future workforce.
A comprehensive review of objective factors — including location, profile, skills, tenure, compensation, promotional history and growth potential — allowed for an evaluation of the organization's readiness to achieve its goals. It also took into account future workforce considerations, considering factors such as availability, assessment abilities, and leadership potential.
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CONDUCT SUBJECTIVE + INCLUSIVE REVIEW
A talent review must never rely on system information alone; incorporating practical and subjective feedback is essential to avoid critical blindspots.
This meant engaging leaders at different levels and select subject matter experts (SMEs) for a holistic workforce view, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives and fostering receptivity to future changes.
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DETAIL THE FUTURE
A vital element to success in this organization’s talent review — and every subsequent talent strategy — is the detailed state of the future workforce. Without this insight, there's a risk that organizational changes may disrupt team dynamics, crumble retention rates, or neglect the secondary and tertiary consequences of your primary decision.
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USE DATA TO MITIGATE RISK
A crucial step of a strategic talent review lies in leveraging your data to improve risk awareness, the foundation for an effective talent strategy. This involves categorizing:
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IDENTIFIED KNOWLEDGE: Knowledge we are aware of and understand
IDENTIFIED RISKS: Risks we are aware of but do not yet understand
UNIDENTIFIED KNOWLEDGE: Knowledge we think we are aware of but actually aren’t (e.g., biases)
UNIDENTIFIED RISKS: Risks we are neither aware of nor understand — often the most costly
A comprehensive talent review seeks to verify identified knowledge, solve for identified risks, expose unidentified knowledge, and uncover and solve for previously unidentified risks.
DEVELOP EFFECTIVE TALENT STRATEGY MAP
A talent strategy map is a visual plan for an organization's current and future workforce, detailing roles, team sizes, leadership, and growth. It is ideally designed using insight gained from a talent review.
In this organization's case, the success of their talent map hinged on proactive strategies derived from identified and unidentified risks in their talent review.
These mission-critical blindspots, if unattended, could have jeopardized the organization's entire talent strategy and future workforce viability.