What are the talent implications of your business strategy? Do you know?

Often, we’re so busy figuring out our strategy that we fail to analyze our talent needs. We also fail to execute the strategy.

With so much riding on companies’ ability to execute swiftly and competently, it’s about time the issue of talent management made it onto the ‘to do’ list.

Astute organizations will ask questions like, “Given our strategy, what are our most critical talent needs?” And perhaps equally important, “How do we gain access to the talent we need?”

Answering these questions will help organizations identify:

the roles that are key to strategic success
the mix of skills, knowledge, behaviors and experience that is required
where talent is best deployed, both functionally and geographically
the gaps or barriers to accessing that talent.
Approaches to workforce planning can differ, but their intent must always be the same. Leaders must re-write their strategic planning process to ensure it covers the talent implications of execution. Without it, even the best-laid plans could be missing their key ingredient.

This post is an extract from What Really Shapes Careers, a white paper examining some of the key patterns in career development across the globe showing just how influential age, culture and the length of time we’ve been in the workforce really are on career progression and choice.