The Importance of Talent Management & Succession Planning

As the world of work continues to change and as we are faced with technological changes and skills shortages, talent management has become extremely important for companies if they are to continue to not only survive but thrive. Organizations in various sectors face skills challenges that pertain to the critical skills requirements of their respective industries.

Talent Management and Succession Planning is at the forefront at this time of the year for many organizations as they conclude their annual performance reviews and wrap up the financial year. This is the beginning of the next cycle of budgeting and talent review to determine that the organization has the required talent to achieve its goals and financial objectives for the new financial year.

It has been four years since the pandemic and yet we are still reeling from the long-term effects it has had on us, and this includes managing talent for organizations. As we know the introduction of remote work that evolved into hybrid work, and then back to the office full-time for some organizations has had a dent on not only the work environment and culture, but also the employee and line manager relationship, which is crucial to increased talent retention rate and reduced labour turnover rate.  Research has also shown that more than fifty percent of employees feel that the remote work has had a negative impact on their career progression within the organization.

These changes also mean that for organizations to manage talent and succession planning, the traditional linear ways of ensuring that they retain the talent they need to achieve business objectives will also have to change. The new world of work requires more innovative, fluid, and tailored ways of managing talent. Each organization will have to conduct a self-diagnosis to assess what it needs to carry it forward to a period of growth, evaluate the current talent, and determine the future talent needs to deliver on the business objectives.

Human Resources challenges in the new world of work include not only creating a compelling value proposition to attract high potential candidates to supplement talent needs in the organization but also creating an engaging and high-performance culture to retain the talent that is already in the organization. Human Resources professionals know of the value of retaining the current talent for a few reasons, which include skills retention, organizational growth, and increased productivity. It is also more beneficial to promote within the organization to fill vacancies because it is one of the key drivers for building an engaged organizational culture. This notwithstanding that research has also shown that the cost of replacing an employee is almost ten times their salary.  

According to Gallup, the number one reason that employees have left their previous employer was due to lack of career development. Research has also shown that employees are looking for the following from their current employers: skills development, internal promotional opportunities, clear career paths for advancement in the organization, and mentorships. Furthermore, according to Gallup 60% of millennials are open to new opportunities. This puts Talent Management and Succession Planning top on the agenda for organizations that not only want to distinguish themselves from their competitors to attract key talent but also to retain current talent.

It is for this reason that retaining your talent in the organization is a strong foundation on which to build a strategic Talent Management and Succession Plan to grow your business. When the business has identified its key talent with high potential to fill critical future vacancies, it is that much closer to achieving its organizational objectives. The first step to Talent Management and Succession Planning is having a Skills Based Talent Management Strategy.  

In your organization, do you have a Skills Based Talent Management Strategy that is designed to assist your organization to achieve the next phase of growth? If yes, that is great because that means you are well positioned to address one of the key challenges of business growth, which is talent. If not, what is your plan to started?

Next time, we will discuss more about Skills Based Talent Management & Succession Planning.