How Will You Fill the Talent Gap as Boomers Retire?

Mass Exodus?
Well, this is it—2008—the year that the first of the baby boomers are eligible to retire. Much has been written about the impending talent crisis—the leadership gaps, the sudden exodus of years of experience and knowledge.

   

Are you seeing that yet in your organization? Are you ready for it? Do you have a plan?

Sadly, more than 2/3 of companies do not have a succession plan.

So, what can you do?

Here’s a three-step process we use to identify potential and develop talent for upcoming leaders:

1. Predict—Assess your talent pool to predict high potential and job fit for critical positions
2. Plan—Create a plan for talent placement, development, and succession
3. Perform—Align the right people with the right responsibilities at the right time to allow people to perform at their highest level

Moving past the pithy three Ps, let’s see how this works:

1. First, use a validated assessment-based approach to provide objective data for identifying high-potential talent.
Selecting talent based on past performance, reputation, and familiarity may seem like a solid approach, but in fact it's fairly subjective and may be misleading. Using valid assessments instead provides an objective underpinning to your search for talent.

To start, key stakeholders (people who fully understand the requirements of the job being assessed) complete a 20-minute Skills Importance Survey to help them:

• Prioritize the importance of various skills within a job
• Specify a benchmark of high-performing individuals in similar situations with which to compare candidates
• Establish a job profile to objectively measure candidates

Then potential candidates take the LH-STEP™ assessment, which combines select measures of background, personality, skills, cognitive ability, and attitudes to provide a whole-person assessment. Backed by 40 years of research and over 90 validation studies, this assessment has been found to be more valid than personality tests, more reliable than opinion surveys, more relevant than performance evaluations, and more flexible and faster than competency mapping. It takes candidates about 2 hours to complete this online assessment.

Finally, candidates’ supervisors complete a Performance Rating Survey.

2. Next, analyze the candidates against the benchmarks.
The surveys and the assessment form the basis for a 9-box promotability matrix that allows you to:

• Evaluate potential and skill fit across the candidate pool for a given job profile
• Objectively measure your bench strength
• Determine who your “ready now” candidates are
• Compare any candidates against any job profile

This data should give you a fairly clear, and more importantly objective, picture of who your high-potential candidates are.

3. Now, what will it take to get those candidates ready for leadership roles? 
A critical output of the process, Individual Development Plans (IDPs), allow you to see existing skill gaps both at a group and individual level, with specific suggestions for ways to develop the necessary skills. The result is a solid action plan for performance management.

The prospect of filling all those soon-to-be vacant slots can seem daunting, but if you have a plan, you’ll be ready. And if you use objective data, your planning becomes more predictable, valuable, and easy.

Want to learn more?
On March 18, Josh Bersin of Bersin & Associates will be addressing this topic in more detail at a half-day workshop in Chicago, entitled:
Uncovering Potential Through Strategic Assessment: Talent Management that Drives Business Results

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Claudia Escribano is a Senior Instructional Designer for Vangent, Inc. a human capital management firm that helps organizations create a high-performing workforce through customized blended, instructor-led, and e-learning solutions

Comments

[Rita]

Yes, the first boomers are eligible to retire at age 62 for an EARLY retirement this year. However, in order to receive their full Social Security, boomers need to work beyond age 65.

And there are boomers who aren't rich. I wrote the following for my blog The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com

Some baby boomers face uncertain retirement. About one third of baby boomers, 25 million, have virtually nothing saved for retirement and face a shaky retirement, according to a recent AARP study. Skyrocketing health care costs, the rising age for full Social Security benefits, and recent lower returns on investments make retirement difficult for the 76 million boomers who will turn 65 in the next two decades.

[Rita]

Yes, the first boomers are eligible to retire at age 62 for an EARLY retirement this year. However, in order to receive their full Social Security, boomers need to work beyond age 65.

And there are boomers who aren't rich. I wrote the following for my blog The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide at http://boomersurvive-thriveguide.typepad.com

Some baby boomers face uncertain retirement. About one third of baby boomers, 25 million, have virtually nothing saved for retirement and face a shaky retirement, according to a recent AARP study. Skyrocketing health care costs, the rising age for full Social Security benefits, and recent lower returns on investments make retirement difficult for the 76 million boomers who will turn 65 in the next two decades.

[Kelley Lake]

Yes, much has been written about the boomers. What needs to be written now is how the second half of boomers have been at a disadvantage. Being at the end means that -- by the time you buy a house, older boomers have bought many homes and driven up the price. So much for home appreciation. By the time the second half boomers want to move up the corporate ladder, they are laid off due to too many older boomers in the workforce. And the boomers won't retire and give up their bigger salaries for second half boomers to enjoy. You ever heard of the dot com bust? Well many boomers lost millions in retirement. Remember 401ks where the companies match contributions? Well, first half boomers got that advantage. By the time second half boomers got there, companies had spent so much money that now very few companies match any more.

[Belstaff Jackets]

For any folks invested in more and better resident contribution, that is a knock back, i believe. But strangely enough, the newest one-pager Can involve many responsibilities around consultation.