20 Talent-Risk Factors and Fixing Them | Brandon Hall

An essential element of talent management is the ability to proactively detect talent risks within an organization and, then, mitigate those risks through proactive tactics. And while risk-mitigation in itself provides an ROI, the ability to identify and address talent risks faster and more effectively than competitors can give an advantage when it comes to winning, retaining, and developing a strong pipeline of internal talent. Although the impact of the coronavirus has created elevated risk levels for most organizations in general, it is still essential that talent strategists deliberately determine those talent factors that present the highest risk to their organizations. Doing so will enable organizations to get ahead of these risks before they become problematic or worsen. In this study conducted by the Brandon Hall Group, they explored 20 possible talent risk factors that face organizations. These factors range from a) lack of compelling development opportunities for top talent, b) an insufficient pipeline of future leaders, to c) business leaders’ reluctance to share talent across the organization, to name a few. A complete list of the 20 talent factors is on page 4 and includes the percentage of companies that felt they were at risk for each factor. While 65 percent was the lowest number of companies who agreed they were at risk for any given factor, several of the risk factors were 90 percent or above including, a lack of clarity over which roles are “critical” to deliver business value. Surprisingly, despite many of these factors being a risk, some organizations still report that they are not managing these risks at any level. Although the list of 20 factors may need to be augmented since this study was done prior to COVID-19, they provide talent strategists with a starting point to 1) determine where their organizations are at the most risk, 2) determine and prioritize how they can mitigate risk in the areas of greatest concern, and 3) how they can go beyond simply mitigating risk and move towards developing and executing strategies and tactics that enable competitive advantage.