Human Capital Systems and Succession Planning

How can you create a smooth connected pipeline of talent that takes your team or your company to the next level? That’s where HR or people systems support the pipeline. They help us to give skills, and they help us to develop our people. But it’s the manager’s responsibility. It’s the team leader’s responsibility. It’s the leader’s responsibility to develop their people. HR is there to support. We have to have experienced people ready to move when it’s time to move, and to execute the strategy we’ve been talking about. Systems need to be in place to identify what people have, what’s in their trick bag, and where can they go next.

Key HR systems and processes that can enable potential to be realized as performance are critically important. Typically, this means having sound, integrated human resource planning, sound and exciting recruitment and selection processes, robust selection processes. Requires training and development, assignmentology, and a performance management system that supports all of this. A career management system, a system of talking to find out what is and what can be, as well as a succession plan for the top talent in the company. Where can they go? What do they need to get there? Where are they ready to go in the next year, in the next three years, or maybe in the next five?

And, again, a compensation and benefit process to ensure the pipeline stays filled. This will allow us to move people forward through the pipeline, and ensure that the pipeline delivers the talent where it needs to be deployed when it is needed.

Again I want to be clear. Human Capital Management Systems, it’s the merger of human resources, or people systems, with the new world of IT. It doesn’t have to be the expensive IT systems that are available, but if you can have them, they’re great. When combined, human resources, people systems, and IT, they support the fueling of the pipeline to get the engaged right person with the right skills and abilities. As well as the emotional intelligence they need, into the right place at the right time, always to execute the strategy of your team or your company. Again strategy underlies all of what we have been talking about. It’s never important to institute a process or system that doesn’t support the strategy.

That’s just a waste. We keep moving along the talent pipeline, and embedded in the diagram is the succession planning that I just spoke about. It’s critical to know who can fill the most important value creating positions in your team or company. To have a list ready of who are the next two or three people that you could select from when the opportunity presents itself.

Succession planning is the culmination of a talent audit process. What’s a talent audit process? It’s most effective for strategic decision making when used on a continuing basis. But truly what it is, is a meeting where people come together. They look at data, they look at people, because data is predictive. Its value for both employee development and career selection is unparalleled. A talent audit is a regular meeting, a regular meeting in the company, where the key positions are outlined. And the people who can fill those positions are discussed. It can happen at many different levels within the company and should.

It requires you to understand the talent that you have, how they have been prepared for role, and what needs to be done yet to develop them for new roles. After completing a talent audit, each organization has an on-demand access into its own employee competency listing. You know what you have, you know what you need to do. You have to hold yourself accountable to assure that you quickly put plans in place to develop the talent if they’re not quite ready for the position. But you may have them ready right now, and you may want to design some new assignments and move so that many people get the opportunity to do something different. Talent should be moved within approximately 36 months.

Or at least, you need to have talked to them about why they’re not moving at that 36 months. You should begin talking to them at least at the 24 month period if these are your top talent.

Putting things into a readily available database, the content is available to you. But, it’s only available if you look at it, and you update it. People need to keep on top of it. Again, accountability is key in the talent audit process. The talent audit allows you to assess new employees as well and add them to the database to ensure it remains current, that it is regularly updated. It will be there when an opening occurs and when you create that series of moves to enrich the talent mix required to lead your company.

Knowing what might happen and having the foresight to prepare for it gives your company a true competitive advantage.

These aren’t nice to have things. These are critically important for the future of your team, your division, your company. Whether it’s for profit or non profit, we need to know what and where we want to go in order to have that competitive advantage and to grow for the long term.

Succession planning is a culmination process that brings together everything that we have been discussing. It starts with strategy. And it goes through all of the process that we have learned and all of the processes we’ve learned to find internal people with the potential to fill those key positions in your company. But it also will identify key gaps that we have. That we may need to go outside, that we may need to recruit, if we haven’t completed all the steps inside to build a robust internal pipeline of people. Let’s hope that you’re able to build that internal pipeline before having to look outside. I want you to think about who can succeed you in the role that you have now.

Where can you go?

And now, look at your team, the best your team has.

Think about your team member that you’ve been working on their development plan all along.

Where do they need to go? What can you do to get them there?

Where can you send your best team member to develop his or her skills? These are all important questions that you should be discussing and thinking about. I think that it’s important for us to recap all that we’ve discussed in creating and building a robust talent pipeline. I think I’ve given you the tools to understand what true talent to lead your company forward is. You need to learn to recognize that talent when you see it. It’s important to recognize talent early and give them the development that they need to grow and develop and lead your company into the future. It’s important to understand that talent management is an integrated system of processes that really click and come together.

They come together for the greater good. And we need to understand how to develop plans in line with our model of talent, A3E2, ability, learning agility, aspiration, emotional intelligence, and engagement. Most important we need to think about the strategy and the tactics that we will need to develop to increase employee engagement and change the way employee engagement looks like in the world today. Giving people a greater idea of what the future can hold, making meaning in their life is so critically important.

And knowing what are the systems that support the whole talent pipeline, that clicks all of those pipes together. And also understanding the importance of succession planning, to be able to have the right person in the right place at the right time with the right skills and abilities to lead your company or your team to the next level. All of this is in line with what we’ve been talking about in the Michigan Model of Leadership. We know at the heart of the model is making a positive difference in the world with key values of empathy, integrity, courage, and drive. To take the world forward as great business leaders making a difference in your teams and in your companies.

I wish you the best of luck. Thank you.