I came across an article called Optimizing Talent as Organizations Flatten in the latest issue of Talent Management.  In mapping out the ‘Talent Life Cycle Model’ the article illustrates how the productivity of a role drastically drops with a sudden vacancy. This drop in ‘employee contribution’ is due to ramp-up time of the new hire.  Building on the ‘Talent Life Cycle Model’, it makes sense that effective succession planning can help avoid the downtime associated with a new hire, by enabling succession ‘bench’ employees to ‘ramp up’ in advance.  However, an obstacle to effective succession planning is the lack of connectivity with the other talent management activities (employee reviews, development, career planning etc.).

Best practice organizations understand that organizational competencies are the critical building blocks that connect talent management activities. With competencies used as the standard for measuring both human capital and roles, organizations can clearly identify talent gaps and match the best-fitting employees to fill those gaps. By enabling in-house mobility and bypassing ramp up involved with hiring and training new talent, talent deployment is then optimized to maximize employee contributions sooner rather than later.

Nakisa has produced a video that further discusses the benefits of advanced competency management. I encourage you to check it out on YouTube:

Advanced Competency Management

Until next time, remember to Visualize What Matters Most™