With so much workforce uncertainty over the last two years in particular, succession planning – or workforce planning – has risen up the strategic priority list. Skills shortages in leadership and business-critical positions at all levels of organisations – both smaller and larger in size – are under increasing pressure to withstand the ripple effect across organisations of losing key people and skills sets. But how sure are you that your succession planning strategy and processes are robust enough to not just to cope amidst these organisational shifts but be confident that you have the necessary successors ready to make the most of a recovering economy and keep it successfully on course in line with your strategy? We think that if the recent challenges have taught us anything it’s that businesses need to embrace and embed succession planning software if they are to survive and thrive.…

The consumerisation of HR processes including succession planning has been widely documented for a number of years, such as in these earlier blogs, calling for organisations to respond to individuals taking greater control over their so-called portfolio careers. Professor Nick Kemsley reflected on this for Head Light back in 2015 urging organisations to adapt their succession planning strategies to these emerging trends or risk losing top talent. Six years on, are these themes still relevant? Set against an even more fluid, volatile and complex market backdrop it seems timely to revisit the key themes he identified for organisations to adopt in response to the career planning consumer.…

So often, succession planning conversations start from the perspective of the Organisation with questions like, ‘what type of leaders will take our organisation forwards’ or ‘which high potentials best fit our current leadership model’? These questions and others like them are undoubtedly important and yet solid and robust career conversations need to consider amplifying the voice of the employee to help shape effective succession planning strategies.…

As we begin our return to the workplace, albeit tentatively, and restart some of our life 'rituals', we all know that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reset our lives; not just to rethink the world of work but to bring about huge societal gains.…

Nearly every company today would state that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a business priority, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Quite apart from any structural changes to the marketplace and economy, what is clear is that remote working is becoming more of a long term feature of the workplace and that working patterns are likely to remain varied across employees.…