A Talent
Plan contains the actions that your management team
will execute during the coming period to meet your company
objectives for motivating and retaining your technical
workforce, to ensure that staff have personal development
plans in place to meet their aspirations within the
company, and to hire the best graduates and experienced
staff for your business objectives. It will include roles
and responsibilities for the management and senior
professionals within the company and suggest how to develop
measurement criteria and regular progress reviews by
management at all levels to ensure that the Talent Plan is
being followed to realise the desired outcomes.
SDC will work with relevant members of your
management team to help them create a plan that they will
own and carry out with the involvement of the whole team -
managers and professionals.
The steps in building the
initial plan are as laid out below. In subsequent years the
plan may be reviewed and updated to reflect changing
business requirements and the changing environment for
resources.
Talent Planning steps
include:
1. Assessment
of resource needs and environment:
- identification of skills gaps in the near term
- training needs
- review of demographics and diversity (age, gender,
ethnic minorities)
- review of attrition rates and trends with respect to
business targets
- business outlook in the near and strategic term
- hiring requirements - graduates, experienced hires,
others
- financial budgets for hiring, training, reward and
recognition schemes
- Corporate directives for the skills and composition
of the technical workforce
- who in the company owns the Talent Plan?
2. Creation
of an Attraction Plan
- which universities will be visited?
- what are the recruitment steps?
- what is the plan for under-graduate employees?
- how are their needs addressed as well as those of
the business?
- what image does your company wish to have with
universities?
- how is that to be built up and maintained?
- what image does your company wish to have with
schools?
- what is the plan to identify and recruit experienced
hires
- what is the induction programme - how are new hires
made welcome?
- are current practices delivering as well as they
might?
- how can they be improved?
3. Creation
of a Motivation Plan
- are career paths in place, are they understood by the
staff?
- how do new staff find out about them?
- do all staff have personal development plans?
- what is the highest technical position on offer in
the company and do you have a satisfactory pipeline of
staff progressing towards these positions?
- how are outstanding new people identified and
encouraged?
- do all eligible staff have equal opportunity and are
they succeeding?
- are the criteria for promotion understood by staff
and applied with equality?
- do you have role models for the more junior
staff?
- are your staff demonstrating the vitality that your
company needs?
- what steps may be taken to improve their contribution
to the business?
4. Creation
of a Retention Plan
- what highly valued members of staff are at risk of
leaving?
- how will this change as the external business climate
improves?
- why do staff leave?
- why do staff stay?
- what are the motivators for your staff?
- what steps are to be taken to obtain the outcomes
your company requires?
5.
Communication Plan
- who reviews and has signoff?
- how will the plan and its progress be communicated to
the management and staff?
- who will review and track the progress, and act on
departures from the plan?
- who will announce changes to the plan?
- does the Talent Plan have 'clout' within the company,
who owns it and who carries it out?
|