Talent reviews typically involve groups of managers, their direct managers, talent and HR representatives in an active review of employees with the objective of determining their fit and level of readiness for promotion. A successful outcome of a talent review also generates insights into the strengths and development opportunities of succession candidates that can be incorporated into development plans.
As a specific tool to be used in talent reviews, the SuccessFactors calibration functionality enables the participants to review and discuss talent assessments and immediately record changes in placements during the talent review. Finalized calibration sessions provide a ready resource to support career and development planning for succession candidates.
To ensure that the outputs of your talent reviews that include calibration don’t simply collect dust, here are five essential strategies that process owners and administrators of the succession process need to master to successfully implement talent review with the calibration function within the SuccessFactors Succession Management application.
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Define key roles in the talent review and succession planning process:
Each talent review with including calibration must be set up with these three roles in mind:
- Subjects include the people who will be reviewed and considered as succession nominees. It is recommended that system administrator should create a dynamic group(s) of subjects for ease of filtering in various functions within SuccessFactors (i.e., printing profiles, forms, matrix report views, etc.).
- Participant Leaders include managers who will meet to review and calibrate the ratings and 9-box matrix placement of the subjects and later make the decisions on nominees for positions.
- Facilitators include the administrators or HR business partners who will assist with material preparation, facilitate talent review sessions, and assist participant leaders in crafting the succession plan nominations on the Succession Organization Chart and review those plans for thoroughness after the calibration session.
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Define your process timeline by establishing due dates for each step in the succession planning process:
Each talent review session must be carefully planned and both subject and participant leaders need to be informed of preparations for each session. Subjects should be contacted to be sure they have updated their Employee Profiles to assure that information is up to date. Participant Leaders should have a clear deadline to complete any talent assessments, potential ratings or talent flags (risk of loss, impact of loss, etc.) in the Managers View of the Employee Profile. Communicate to participant leaders and facilitators the date, time, and locations for sessions. Participant leaders should be prepared with printed copies of the Employee Profile or review profiles for all subjects to be reviewed in advance of the review.
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Orientate participants and facilitators to their roles and responsibilities in the Talent Review session.
Successful talent reviews with calibration require that facilitators and participant leaders are prepared to have meaningful and direct conversations about subjects. Participant leaders typically discuss their direct reports and should be prepared to give a brief overview of their talent ratings (performance and potential) talent flags and specific strength and development opportunities relative to promotion. As there may be many subjects reviewed in a current talent review session, discussion of candidates should be limited to an average of 5 minutes. Highest and lowest rated subjects typically require the most discussion. By starting with the highest rated subjects, then the lowest rated, and concluding with middle rated subjects, facilitators will be able to pace the discussion accordingly. Creating quick reference guides which can be attached to a calibration session (1 per session) or videos within the application are an effective way of orienting participants and facilitators to the talent review process.
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Capture high-quality session notes.
The best-planned talent reviews will have little impact if the discussions driven by the process are not captured and available to participant leaders to follow up with subjects. Session notes should be recorded by the facilitator or a scribe and recorded in the comments section for each subject of the talent review session. An additional section in the Manager’s View of Employee Profile can also be configured to capture notes. Essential content for notes include:
- Rationale for changing a talent rating
- Specific strengths or examples of behaviors that indicate strengths which this subject can leverage in a future role
- Specific roles that the subject might assume in the next position
- Development opportunities or specific experiences or education a subject may need to gain before being ready for promotion
It is essential that participant leaders have access to the comments or notes after the session. In the case that subjects were discussed and calibrated without their direct manager present in the talent review, session comments or notes are particularly essential for success.
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Link development notes to managers to follow up with career and development discussions.
While a completed calibration of a performance and a potential matrix is a valuable output of a talent review session, the real value and impact of the investment in talent reviews are the career and developmental planning discussion for the subjects reviewed. In some cases, the next step in succession planning is having managers make nominations of subjects to specific positions or roles. Each participant leader participating in a talent review and/or nomination process should have clear expectations to follow up with all subjects with a career and development plan. Key topics to be discussed include:
- The succession candidates career aspirations.
- Potential roles that are supported by the talent review discussion (although no specific role or timeline should be implied).
- Specific strengths exemplified by behaviors or accomplishments of the subject in their current role.
- Specific developmental opportunities the subject may have for future roles and the specific requirements that the subject needs to assume target roles.
The output of this career discussion should be an update to the subject’s career and development plan. Over the years we have seen that customers who master these 5 key strategies are the most successful in managing a complete talent review process.