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What is talent mapping? Definition + Helpful Steps and Tools!
Published on:
November 15, 2024
Updated on:
December 5, 2024
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The world of talent management is full of buzzwords and strategic frameworks, but one method that's getting a lot of attention lately is talent mapping. If you’re in human resources, recruitment, or workforce planning, chances are you’ve heard this term thrown around. But what exactly is the talent mapping definition, and why should you care?
Maybe you're an HR manager looking to build a future-ready workforce, a recruiter preparing for hiring needs, or someone curious about human capital management and how organizations maintain a steady flow of talent. Whatever brought you here, you're in the right place.
We’re covering everything in this article and giving away a free template!
Before we jump into the details, let’s get something clear, the definition of talent mapping is the strategic process of assessing and planning for the talent needs of an organization.
It keeps you competitive, reduces hiring gaps, and prepares you for changes, from leadership turnover to new market demands.
Talent mapping is about proactively setting your organization up for success by making sure you have the right people in the right places, both now and in the future.
From start to finish, we outlined 7 key steps along with action tips to help guide you on how to implement talent mapping in your organization.
1. Start with Your Business Goals
Every successful talent mapping strategy is grounded in its organization’s big-picture objectives. Your talent needs should align directly with these goals.
Step into the Future: Ask leadership about the organization’s 3–5-year plan. Are there plans to expand into international markets? Each goal will influence the type of talent you need.
Identify Growth Areas: Understand which departments or teams are expected to grow. For example, a tech organization launching new products will need more R&D talent.
Connect Roles to Strategy: Map each critical goal to key roles needed to achieve it. If your organization’s goal is to become a market leader in AI, for instance, you’ll likely need data scientists, machine learning engineers, and thought leaders in artificial intelligence.
Action Tip: Sit down with leadership and map out where the organization is headed over the next 3-5 years. This will help you understand which roles will be critical and which skills will be in high demand.
Remember: If your talent strategy doesn’t connect to your business goals, you’re just making a list, not a plan.
2. Identify Critical Roles
Next up, define the roles that are absolutely required for your organization’s success. These are the positions that, if left unfilled or managed poorly, could create major setbacks.
Focus on impact: Concentrate on roles that have a substantial effect on the long-term viability. This might include C-suite roles, department leaders, or specialized technical positions.
Consider Skill Scarcity: Some roles are harder to fill due to unique skill requirements. Proactively identify these positions to avoid talent shortages in the future.
Business Continuity: Certain roles may not be high-ranking but are essential for smooth operations. For example, an operations manager or lead account executive may not be easy to replace.
Action Tip: Work closely with department heads to identify key roles that could disrupt your team if left vacant or poorly managed.
3. Audit Your Present Workforce
Now it’s time to take stock of your current talent. Assess who’s performing well, who has high potential, and where your organization has skill gaps.
Conduct Skills Assessments: Collect information through surveys, interviews, and performance reviews to gain a comprehensive understanding of your employees’ skill sets.
Quick tip: To ensure you’re hiring the right talent, incorporate skill assessment software or an interview evaluation form into your recruitment and candidate testing process.
Evaluate Performance and Potential: The 9-Box Talent Grid is a widely used tool for this purpose. It categorizes employees based on their performance (how well they execute their roles) and potential (their capacity for growth). Employees in the high-performance, high-potential quadrant may be ready for leadership positions, while others may need additional training.
Evaluate Gaps and Overlaps: Analyze your talent pool to find areas of strength and weakness. For example, you may have a strong marketing team but lack employees skilled in data analytics.
Action Tip: Compile your findings into a talent inventory report. Your report should include a detailed breakdown of skills by department, a list of high-potential employees, and areas where you identify clear gaps.
4. Identify Gaps and Future Needs
Asking these kinds of questions helps you develop a more precise and actionable plan, ensuring you’re ready to address any talent shortages before they become issues.
Skills Gaps Analysis: Compare your talent inventory with the future skills needed. What skills will become essential as the organization evolves?
Leadership Gaps: Do you have a strong succession plan in place for your leadership roles? If there are no clear successors, you’ll need to make a plan for leadership development.
Emerging Roles: Think about roles that aren't part of your organization yet but may be crucial in just a few years. Staying ahead can help you predict these needs.
Action Step: Create a talent gap analysis report. For each identified gap, outline potential risks and solutions, whether through targeted training, hiring, or developing current employees.
5. Build a Talent Pipeline
This is where your strategy becomes an offense. You're not waiting for openings, but you build a pipeline of qualified candidates ready to step in at need.
Action Tip: Set up an engagement calendar with regular career development check-ins for internal candidates. Emphasize your employer brand to highlight your culture and dedication to talent development, ensuring that both internal and external candidates remain engaged for future opportunities.
6. Invest in Employee Development
Talent mapping isn’t just about filling future roles, it’s also about growing the talent you already have. Investing in employee development also boosts employee retention and morale.
Action Tip: Work with department heads to develop training plans. Use feedback from employees to create programs targeting their needs and career aspirations.
7. Keep It Ongoing and Adaptive
Most importantly, view talent mapping as an ongoing activity. Over time, your organization’s needs are going to change. This is called staying nimble, and regularly reviewing your talent map makes sure you stay prepared.
Quarterly Reviews: Touch base with your leadership and HR teams to look over your talent map quarterly. Review and adjust your strategy with respect to whether the direction of the organization has changed.
Track Metrics: Monitor internal promotion rates, time to fill positions and employee retention. These metrics help you assess the effectiveness of your talent mapping efforts.
Action Tip: Each quarter, have a talent mapping review meeting. During these sessions, you can update your talent map, review your talent pipeline, and analyze whether your development programs are hitting the mark.
Don’t let the steps of creating a talent map intimidate you, there are plenty of tools and software to help you while building one. The tools and software below are designed for optimizing talent resourcing for organizations and are available in many formats. One important consideration here is to decide which tools suit you and your organizational structure.
The 9-box grid is a three-by-three model that evaluates performance along the x-axis and potential along the y-axis. It classifies talent into nine categories, from high performers with high potential to low performers with low potential.
The grid has obvious benefits in talent mapping, it gives a visual overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the workforce, easing the exercise of strategic planning and succession choices.
It allows HR teams and managers to focus on development plans that match talent to future business needs and ensures that an organization has a strong group of high potential talent.
And this one is how a highly customizable 9-box grid looks like:
At Teamflect, we know that each organization has its unique culture, way of working, and needs. For that reason, we are always empathetic to our clients' needs and visionary in HR tech.
Teamflect’s 9-box grid is fully customizable, you can edit the names of the axes, the metrics, the descriptions, and even change the colors of the boxes!
These are nice for sure, but you can also make 9-box grids a part of your performance reviews, so reviewers assess each employee on the grid as well. And if you want to take it a step further, you can leverage AI to get suggestions.
Organizations use competency frameworks to outline the key skills and behaviors needed to achieve their goals. It’s a straightforward way to align expectations across the board.
Competency frameworks are very helpful in talent mapping. They allow organizations to identify skill gaps, recognize high-potential employees, and create tailored development programs. The clear guidance provided by the framework also benefits the employees.
The knowledge of the exact skills required for upward mobility encourages them to become more involved and ready to develop.
Using a competency framework can also simplify the talent mapping process. Instead of having bits and pieces of information scattered around, you can centralize everything and make it easy for everyone to access. Here’s how Teamflect as a leading career management software, can make this happen:
Succession planning is a strategy that involves identification and development of future leaders who will be put in important positions within the organization. The intention behind succession planning is that by pre-emptively addressing which roles are crucial within an organization, and which employees possess the qualifications and aptitude for those positions, leadership will continually be sustained without disruption.
Succession planning, therefore, serves as a tool for talent mapping. It helps organizations to conceptualize and monitor where their future leaders are within the company. In employee development, succession planning aligns employee development with long-term business goals, and more clearly identifies gaps in skill capability and areas of improvement. Companies are better positioned to plan for the future and fill the necessary positions with people possessing the right skills at the right time.
Here is our 9-Box Grid Template in Excel for anyone wanting to kick-off talent mapping. It's a simple template that will help you check your team with regard to performance and potential.
In this way, you will be able to find out who is doing well, who may need some help, and who could be a leader in the future.
Or if you’re interested in a more sophisticated version of it, try Teamflect for free up to 10 users with full functionality!
If you're aiming for growth, want to attract top talent, and ensure your organization stays competitive, a talent mapping strategy is essential.
We understand terms like "talent mapping" and "succession planning" might seem a bit abstract. But here's the benefits of talent mapping for businesses and what you gain from having a solid talent mapping strategy:
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