Talent management and succession planning

Writing in Business Week, Claudia Lacy Kelly, the global practice leader of Spencer Stuart's Human Resources Practice, outlines key questions that corporate directors should ask about talent management.

"Global competition and the war for talent have reached a point that require corporate boards to be confident that their companies are focusing on talent management at the highest levels," argues the author.

Therefore, there are seven important questions that directors should ask about their companies in order to determine how well career development and succession planning are being implemented at senior management level and below.

The questions are:

* What succession-planning process is in place for the senior executive level (CEO, CFO, CIO, CHRO and business-unit leaders)?

* How is the company assessing the competence of its senior executives and those immediately below them?

* How much time do senior executives devote to succession planning at the senior executive level?

* Who owns leadership/career development and succession planning below CEO level, and how are they being run?

* How is the company approaching global workforce planning, what are the critical talent gaps the company faces over the next five years, and what programmes are in place to fill them?

* What is the company doing to retain mission-critical and high-potential talent?

* Is the human resources function providing the critical leadership needed to drive these key questions?

It is essential these questions are answered, says Kelly, as "the global span of large corporations, an inability to bring professional and technical workers into the US because of visa limits, and a dearth of US graduates in such critical specialties as engineering... underscore the need for increased diligence in managing human capital".

What Directors Should Ask about Talent Management
Claudia Lacy Kelly, Business Week, 09/12/08