Increase retention and revenue through talent planning

Steve Van Remortel

Guest Columnist

September 7, 2022

When I was growing up, it seemed like life was pretty simple.

The world around me was changing, but it didn’t seem to be at the pace that it is today.

It seems as if more happens in the world in one week now, than used to happen in a month or two, then.

As leaders, we are forced to not only quickly recognize the new challenges (pandemic, supply chain, employee shortages) that arise, but accept them as part of our reality moving forward.

The generational math tells us that workforce/people issues have been, and will continue to be, a reality moving forward.

There are more than 10,000,000 jobs open today in the U.S., and credible research and trends inform us that it is only going to get worse for several years to come.

The leaders that have accepted this reality and have proactively put talent plans in place to overcome it, are going to win the battle for talent.

The company who is winning in each industry will have mastered the skill of talent planning – realizing the full growth potential of their people and organization through talent plans.

A talent plan includes all the actions a leader needs to take that moves your team from where you are today to where your team needs to be in the future to achieve your goals/vision.

For example, if you have a three-year vision/strategy, you develop three-year talent plans across your organization.

Talent plans are developed at three levels of the organization including: the leadership team, each department and each individual.

1: Leadership team talent plan
The leader creates a talent plan that moves the leadership team from where it is today to where it needs to be to execute your strategy and achieve your vision.

The plan includes such things as development priorities for current team members, promotions and what prioritized new hires/skill sets we need to add to the team to execute the strategy.

It makes sure you are developing leaders internally for succession planning as well.

The organization only functions as well as the leadership team, and a talent plan ensures a high-performing leadership team.
 
2: Department talent plans
Once the leader has completed the first draft of their leadership team talent plan, they then work with each leadership team member/department leader to create a talent plan for their respective department.

The combination helps minimize your people issues and maximizes your revenue.

For example, a talent plan for your sales department guarantees you have sales farmers and hunters in the right position to increase revenue, not only with current customers, but new customers as well.
 
3: Individual talent plan
Now that you have a company-wide talent plan in place to increase retention and revenue, the third level is to put an individual talent plan in place over time for every team member, which can include such things as their strengths, weaknesses, professional and personal goals and their development plan priorities.

With individual talent plans and one-on-one meetings, your leaders are in-tune with their direct reports, working upstream to identify and solve any issues before they impact your business.

As a result, your employees feel seen and heard and know they’re investing their time in a company that’s also investing in them.

At the end of the day, most employees just want to know that their company cares for them, their family and their future.
 
Evolving plans
You increase retention and revenue when you have talent plans at all three levels in your organization.

Talent planning ensures that you are retaining your high performers, hiring the right person the first time and building leaders internally for succession planning.

Talent plans are a living, breathing document that evolves as you execute your strategy and adapt to the continuous change around you.

Accepting the fact that people challenges will remain the No. 1 issue for many years to come is not easy to do – I get that.
But it is necessary, so you can shift your energy to overcoming it through talent planning.

And those who are winning the battle for talent and dominating their industry are the companies that master talent planning.
The future of talent is talent planning.
 
Steve Van Remortel is Founder/CEO of MyTalentPlanner, Chief Strategist & Talent Advisor at Stop the Vanilla, LLC.