How do you define and prioritize critical roles and skills in your HR strategy?

In my experience, the process around defining critical roles starts by understanding the values and legacy of the organization and engaging in storytelling on "what great looks like in this organization." To help align everyone, the approach should then build on a frontline leadership philosophy, meaning that stories should emphasize how leaders on the frontlines excel at serving customers, clients, and partners. Defining mission critical roles and leaders can then proceed as a collaborative process based on rating factors like urgency, impact, skills, internal and external talent.

Defining and prioritizing critical roles and skills in HR strategy begins with aligning organizational goals with workforce needs. Conduct a comprehensive analysis of current and future business objectives, identifying key areas where talent is crucial for success. Then, assess the skills and competencies required to fulfill these roles effectively. Prioritize critical roles based on their impact on strategic objectives, market demands, and potential risks. Consider factors such as scarcity of talent, potential for innovation, and alignment with organizational values. Finally, develop targeted recruitment, development, and retention strategies to ensure a robust pipeline of talent for these critical roles.

A competency assessment identifies the competencies that are most critical to the organization's future success. Once the competencies are identified, the focus is on evaluating the behavioral indicators that illustrate how well they are being demonstrated by employees. This is often through performance reviews, testing, interviews and other analysis. That process yields a better picture of the organization's strengths and gaps that need to be addressed in the steps that follow.

HR strategy should be aligned to organizational strategy. Based on known priorities, leaders match current and desired skillsets to organizational needs. Where gaps exist, leaders define training plans and recruiting strategies to close the gaps.

Here is how you can define critical roles and skills: - Clearly define the key roles and skills required to drive your organization's growth and success. - Prioritize roles that directly contribute to achieving strategic objectives and fulfilling business needs. - Identify any emerging roles or skills that may become essential in the future. - Ensure alignment between critical roles and skills and your organization's overall vision and mission.

A good approach to consider is using a talent segmentation matrix. In this approach, you segment talent pools according to the criteria of criticality - how important is this pool to deliver your strategy, and scarcity - based on market data how difficult is it to access, find and retain this skill. By using this simple matrix, you are able to identify access strategies that help you source these skills in a sustainable manner, while also taking into consideration your own capacity and resources.

Defining critical roles and skills means pinpointing what truly drives your business. Focus on roles that boost performance and innovation. For example, a tech startup might prioritize AI specialists and data analysts. Use job analysis and skill matrices to clarify these roles, ensuring everyone knows what's essential for success.

The two challenges one needs to balance here is a) not to categorize too many roles at once and to get lost in tools and details, and b) not to make non-critical role holders feel inferior. Rather, they need to walk away feeling proud of how they support these critical roles to succeed. One thing I found helpful is only to focus on critical roles and leadership skills collaboratively, using storytelling. In humanitarian organizations for example, one can kick off by engaging the senior team to discuss a recent emergency or a challenging transformation and ask "which role was crucial in getting this over the finish line?", and "imagine this role had not been present, what would have happened?".

There can often be confusion as to what critical roles really mean in an organisation. Without sales there will be no customers, without production there will be no goods, and of course without people there will be no organisation to run. Yet when verything is critical then nothing is critical. I see critical roles more as those that are vital to the competitive advantage of the organisation in the market, both now and in the future. These are roles that provide the business with exponential value AND are in line with the business strategic priorities. Critical roles should not be confounded by hard-to-fill (scarce) roles, as one does not necessarily mean the other.

People often confuse critical roles (structural risk) with scarce or critical skills (people risk). A role is critical role when there is a high risk of failure if you put the wrong person in it. Factors that increase risk of failure are: Uncertainty: you will rely on the incumbents judgment Volatility: the conditions in which the person operates are changing frequently System maturity: processes are not clearly defined Support: the person has few others to rely on for help Given the criteria above which role is more critical? Commercial pilot or Fighter pilot? Now apply the same thinking to your business roles. Consistent, clear criteria make it easier to prioritize your critical roles. (Fighter pilot)

Don't prioritize without collaboration and input beyond the HR or senior team! A key point is to engage a wider group of leaders and employees in the prioritization. For example, sharing the reasoning about the specific criteria you use is a leadership communication opportunity. The process has to move beyond the HR team and be led by senior leadership. You can apply digital engagement and survey tools, such as Mentimeter and others to get a prioritization in real-time and spark a conversation.

A comprehensive grasp of the organization's vision and strategy is crucial for HR to effectively translate it into goals and subsequently, objectives. This enables the establishment of appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor progress, ultimately steering towards the realization of the long-term vision. Addressing pain points and enhancing workflow efficiency are integral considerations. At every stage of strategy implementation, it is imperative to cultivate trust among the organization's main assets its employees. This involves garnering their commitment to embrace necessary changes and proactively acquiring new skills to meet future demands.

Here is how you can prioritize critical roles and skills: - Rank critical roles and skills based on their impact on business outcomes and strategic goals. - Consider the scarcity of certain skills in the market and the potential for these roles to drive innovation. - Assess the potential for internal development versus external hiring for critical roles. - Allocate resources and investments to develop and acquire the prioritized skills and roles.

Prioritizing critical roles and skills is like triaging in an ER—focus on what's most crucial first. Use ranking and scoring methods to decide. For instance, if customer satisfaction is a top priority, prioritize hiring and training in customer service roles. Talent maps and pipelines can help visualize and manage these priorities, ensuring you allocate resources where they matter most.

Critical roles are not necessarily the highest paid in the organization or those that are hardest to fill. Every organization is different and there is no 'one size fits all' way to determine these roles. During annual talent reviews, time should be spent by Sr. leaders to identify these roles, make every effort to retain high potentials AND develop a strategy for succession - both internally and externally.

Here is how you can align your HR strategy: - Develop HR policies, practices, and programs that support the recruitment, development, and retention of critical roles and skills. - Integrate critical roles and skills into your talent acquisition and succession planning processes. - Ensure that performance management and training programs are aligned with the development of key skills. - Foster a culture that values and rewards the acquisition and utilization of critical skills and roles.

In my experience, and building on what Mindy Hanna wrote here, a disciplined approach for this needs to take place rather quarterly than annually. The discipline of looking at talent and critical roles needs to become a habit, which is hard if it only happens once a year. Moreover, once everyone in the organization is aware of the regular talent review process, it's a great employer signal to communicate and tell stories about successful pathways across the organization and upwards.

Aligning your HR strategy means putting your critical talent front and center. Craft policies that support and develop these key players. For instance, if innovation is vital, invest in R&D training and offer incentives for creativity. Use recruitment, training, and retention strategies to ensure you’ve got the right people in the right roles at the right time, driving your success.

One of the key elements missing in traditional workforce capabilities planning is the forecasts of the future skills that will be required, of the right quality, at the locations aligned to business growth strategies and at the right costs. This not only enables to plan for the future skills needs today, but to also ensure that the business future growth plans are enabled through proactive talent sourcing and or development solutions that are pre-budgeted for for tomorrow today.

In my experience, successful organizations I've worked at and with, have designed this as regular habit of conversations among senior leaders, rather than only a scorecard or dashboard. Always ask when and by whom these scorecards and dashboards are used in decision-making. During my own experience in mission-critical roles, I was accountable for a quarterly conversation about my successor pipeline. Who is on this pipeline and why? How quickly will they be ready (18 months, 2 years, 5 years)? What are you doing to inspire the people in my pipeline to grow and stretch in the right direction?

A critical final step is monitoring and evaluating the HR strategy's impact. But clear communication is integral at all stages: aligning stakeholders, building buy-in, fostering collaboration in initiatives, driving engagement in rollout, providing transparency into progress, and conveying HR's value. Ongoing communication transforms the strategy from top-down to inclusive, allowing dynamic evolution based on feedback. This boosts talent capabilities by ensuring understanding, participation, and support.

Here is how you can monitor and evaluate your results for your HR strategy: - Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track the effectiveness of your HR strategy in developing and retaining critical roles and skills. - Regularly review and assess the performance and development of employees in critical roles. - Solicit feedback from employees, managers, and stakeholders on the impact of prioritizing critical roles and skills. - Use data analytics and feedback mechanisms to continuously improve and adjust your HR strategy.

Monitoring and evaluating your HR strategy is like checking the pulse of your organization. Use dashboards and surveys to track talent engagement and retention. For example, quarterly feedback sessions can reveal if development programs are working. The goal? Identify what’s thriving, what’s not, and tweak your strategy to keep your talent engine running smoothly.

The best HR Strategies are able to be shared in one picture, telling one story in a way that makes employees and stakeholders immediately go "aah, that makes sense." We often don't spend enough time to bring simplicity to our strategies - yes we need the detailed execution plans and monitoring dashboards, but importantly, you also need the story that inspires action, helps people understand why this matters and where this fits.

Great set up Bidjan. One build: think of how to build long-term change management, communication and accountability plans My experience is that over time criticality of roles change- you need a plan and a timeframe to address I suggest a review every 2 years

Define and prioritize key roles and skills by: - Spotting Essentials: “Identify roles crucial for success.” - Finding Gaps: “See which skills are missing.” - Aligning with Goals: “Match roles with company objectives.” - Prioritizing Needs: “Rank based on impact and urgency.” - Training Talent: “Upskill for critical competencies.” Examples: - Spotting Essentials: “Focus on top roles like team leads.” - Finding Gaps: “Look for skills in new tech.” - Aligning with Goals: “Ensure roles support strategic aims.” - Prioritizing Needs: “Address high-impact roles first.” - Training Talent: “Provide targeted upskilling programs.”

Start by aligning with overall business goals. Identify roles, projects and objectives crucial for organizational success and the key skills required. Conduct regular HR related assessments and collaborate with department heads to understand evolving needs. Prioritize roles with high impact on business objectives and ensure a balance between current and future skill requirements. Regularly review and adapt your strategy based on changing business dynamics and emerging industry trends and applicable best practices. Good luck!

The best HR strategies are not communicated by HR. The CEO and senior leadership communication both internally and externally needs to tell the stories of "who are are at our best" and "what great frontline leadership serving our clients looks like". If critical roles and talent reviews are not connected to leadership communication, it risks being viewed as an HR only task.