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Many organizations conduct some version of a talent review. While the specific topics covered will vary by organization, themes range from identifying employees who can advance into larger, more complex roles, to managing unwanted retention risk, to ensuring succession depth for critical roles. One thing I have learned over the years of running many talent reviews across different industries is the real differentiator is strong discipline on what happens after the talent review, not just during it. And that discipline is informed by answering three interrelated questions: 1) Action plan clarity: what specific action are we agreeing to take as a result of this review? 2) Business leader accountability: who outside of HR owns this action? 3) Follow up: What is the timing and expectation for reporting back on the progress and outcomes of the actions identified, and what is the success metric for each action? These three are not independent checkboxes but rather are interconnected. For example, a clear and owned action with no check in date rarely happens on time, and an action with a deadline but no named owner rarely gets prioritized. While these three areas sound easy and fundamental, they are not consistently executed and sometimes are missed completely. To help put this into practice, here is my cheat sheet with a few ideas that can help identify opportunities for enabling more impactful talent reviews.
