The movie Glengarry Glen Ross introduced the sales catchphrase “ABC: Always Be Closing” to pop culture. Here’s one for HR: “ABP: Always Be Planning.” It’s an especially good philosophy to follow when it comes to talent management.

Think about it – if we are thinking ahead in terms of talent development and management, then we’ll be prepared for change with resources at the ready (to a degree, of course). Take the 9 box, for example. If your company consistently rates and reviews top talent, you benefit in a couple of ways. First, you can easily see read more »

Job hunting is rarely a fun experience, but it is even less so in a trying economy where unemployment is hovering near 10%.   If you read the papers and watch the news you hear that jobs are out there, but those out of work often do not have the skill sets that these open positions require.  So, the question for a job seeker is how do you gain, and more importantly portray, that you have these skills to a potential employer? read more »

A Nine-Box matrix is typically used in succession planning to plot the potential of an employee to move up in the organization on one axis and performance ratings on the other axis.  This allows you to compare, contrast, and desk check that you are considering as many individuals as possible for succession plans.

But, why should we stop there?  Aquire is implementing some great creative usage in the 9 box to help solve many business and talent-driven decisions.  I bet you would love to see performance rating on one axis and the scale of salary or raise % within a 9 box.  It allows people to fall directly into the 9 box and you can see the outliers during your bonus planning.  It is very powerful. read more »

Succession planning discussions aren’t limited to HR industry magazines and websites anymore – just Google search “Yankees succession plan” and you’ll get a host of hits from a wide range of sources. Clearly this is more than just buzz – it’s top of mind in the business community, as I believe it should be. A sound succession plan keeps organizations on the path to success.

So why do we hesitate to create that crucial blueprint? Confusion? Dread? Lack of resources and tools? Too many of us get bogged down in the concept of managing the process instead of focusing on the plan itself.

This is a subject that I’ve been tackling head on lately. So, I thought I’d put all of our recent succession planning resources here. I hope you enjoy! read more »

Bring up the subject of succession planning and most HR and other executives shudder. These highly intelligent, capable people often labor under the impression that succession planning is such a complicated, multi-step process that they are already too far behind to even begin. read more »