Talent pool, a wise option to prepare companies for the future

There are two soups when you lose a leader Within a company: take a reactive approach and concentrate efforts on finding an external profile to fill the vacancy, or have the person ready to occupy the executive position that remained empty.

However, one must be aware that the first option may not be enough given the levels of shortage of specialized talent in some economic activities. In addition, the exhaustion experienced by the workforce can become an element that discourages internal promotion, says the PageGroup firm. In any scenario, this highlights a real need in companies: you have to have a talent pool.

“When leadership positions are unexpectedly vacant, the focus is often on filling the position as quickly as possible. And while agility is often hailed as the key to resilience, these experiences highlight the need for a more durable solution to keep talent flowing. In this sense, the most solid companies are those that give priority to succession planning”, indicates the firm in its report Eight trends of the executive world 2022.

However, few companies have a pool of talent that allows them to prepare the next person who will occupy an executive position. According to PageGroup, this is due to several factors, but among the most important are the concentration of resources and investments in hiring instead of retention, as well as the resistance of some bosses to engage in a frank conversation to recognize the inevitable: “ At some point, even the best employees will need to be replaced.”

As Blanya Correal, an international consultant and specialist in labor and organizational transformation, expresses, the objective of a talent pool is “to have the next hitter ready” and the fact of not having it prepared can put the same at risk. business continuity.

“I think that one of the reasons why companies do not have such a clear plan for their talent pool is because they do not have their talent strategy with that of the business. Today the size of an organization is measured by the number of people, but that does not show us the quality of the talent. Since we don’t measure the impact that talent has on generating results, we worry less about landing what we have to do to ensure that the talent we have works, ”he points out.

From the perspective of Antonio Sancho y Maldonado, a professor in the area of ​​Personnel Management at IPADE, the lack of commitment to succession plans is linked to various factors, one of which is the size of the companies, especially in SMEs where structural and financial capacity is limited. However, in large organizations it is related to a lack of awareness of senior management regarding the relevance of internal talent.

“When we compare the benefits between the attracting external and internal talentClearly, the first one has the advantage of bringing in experts, people with skills that complement the organization’s strategy or who can provide a fresh vision. But the benefit of internal development is the generation of identity; something that you will never be able to ensure from an external contract is the degree to which the person will live your ideology and your values, it is a bet ”, she exposes.

But in practice, there are many leaders who do not find much value in the adherence of the profiles to the business identity and culture. “They are looking for someone who can solve a problem in the short term and that is more focused on hard skills and sometimes many leaders put the relevance of attitudes and values ​​linked to culture on a second level”, points out Antonio Sancho.

For Blanya Correal, the current context of challenges faced by businesses requires a breaking paradigms and this implies being aware that the second person in command is not always the ideal one to replace an executive.

“Something that is important to highlight is that in agile organizations there is no longer even a second in command, we have tribes or work teams. Today the career plan depends more on the type of skills that people need to resolve an issue and who should replace that person, it must be someone who has those skills and sometimes, they are not the second to report and can be anywhere of the organization. The thing is, the army-like growth mindset is very hard to get out of people’s heads,” he notes.

How to build a talent pool?

According to PageGroup, “succession planning begins with hiring high-potential candidates and continues with developing and nurturing talent.” In this sense, the firm recommends that senior managers implement a succession plan start by identifying the employees most likely to rise to the executive level and offering them responsibilities and training beyond their current role.

To build a talent pool, Indeed and Ascendo specialists recommend carry out the following steps:

1. Identify business objectives. Aligning the talent pool with the goals of the organization is key to recruiting the right candidates.
2. Define critical charges. Identifies positions that are essential to accomplish the mission and achieve business objectives.
3. Take the talent inventory. Analyze the skills, experiences and attitudes that people in your company have and define potential candidates.
4. Establish training mechanisms. Training and mentoring are key for workers to develop the skills that the organization requires.
5. measure progress. The evaluation of the people who will replace critical positions must be based on objective criteria and measurements.
6. Have a retention plan. The succession plan must also involve an effort to develop and retain talent.

In Blanya Correal’s experience, the first step involves identifying the business challenges you have and your talent’s ability to respond to them. “This starts from the strategy, where the company is going. That is on one side of the funnel and on the other side is knowing what is needed: a goalie, Forward, defending”, he thinks.

Once the profiles that the organization has and their alignment with the business plans have been identified, work can be done on the succession. “Talent planning should not only be to fill the gap we have, when you recruit a person you should think about how to fill the career line, how to feed the succession bank”, he considers.

For his part, Antonio Sancho y Maldonado points out that one of the mechanisms to generate a seedbed of talent is the incorporation of students to apprenticeship programs and even limited for future leaders. “Some of the biggest challenges are the structural and financial capacity of the company, but another restriction is the vision of the leaders regarding the commitment to internal talent”, he emphasizes.

In a context such as “the great resignation”, which in Mexico has been a phenomenon limited to the executive world, the specialist believes that talent development and succession plans can be an important resource in retaining key profiles, although there is no to lose sight of flexibility, salary and organizational environment.

“Global competition for executive talent is growing fiercer, as companies continue to battle employee turnover and burnout. The succession planning it is essential for companies to take advantage of their internal talent pool and avoid the risk and expense of external contracting in the short term”, say PageGroup specialists.