systematicHR

I’m trying to figure out how I chose succession and workforce planning as “what’s right with talent management.” (if you read to the end, you’ll find out why the post is named “what’s wrong”) I’m actually not all that excited about what we’re doing here, but at least I think we’re on the right track. Succession and workforce planning are areas where HR is both forward looking and integrated with the rest of the business.

In succession where HR plans with senior leadership how the next generation of executives are found and mentored, HR plays a critical role by understanding the business needs and identifying how the organization will adapt. This is an area where HR really plays a part in the definition of the future. The one drawback is that succession planning is performed outside of HR in many organizations.

Workforce planning is also an area where HR has stepped outside of it’s comfort zone and added real value. This is a highly quantitative area where both the current workforce and current talent market availability are evaluated. More importantly, HR works with business leaders to project future requirements and future talent availability based on complex demographic models. While I actually don’t think HR usually has these skillsets, HR can effectively partner with finance and other operational units to pull data together.

So here I am saying wonderful things about succession and workforce practices. Why is this post named “what’s wrong?” In both examples HR is doing the right thing and going down the right path. The problem is that many organizations perform these functions outside of HR or HR needs outside support. What’s wrong with this picture is the obvious lack of “competencies” within HR. HR needs finance because it can’t usually handle the complex future budgeting and planning models needed to define the workforce. Executives may not have HR do succession because of a lack of trust. So I finally find a topic where we’re on the right track, but we (HR) don’t have the skillsets. As a group (and very generally), we don’t have not partnered with our organizations to the fullest extent, we don’t have the analytical capabilities that are needed to “sell” these solutions to our business partners, and we haven’t engaged these business partners in our goals. Until we realize and become competent in broadening the reach of HR, we’re not impacting the business nearly as much as we should.