Talent review explained

A talent review is one component of strategic workforce planning. It is a way of mapping the knowledge, talents and competencies that already exist among the people in an organisation and setting them against the knowledge, talents and competencies the organisation wants. In a good talent review, you combine experience from the past, competencies in the present and potential for the future. It is also important to look at the development of the team. If an individual cannot develop, neither can the team. But if an individual can develop, that does not automatically make the team better. A talent review is therefore about the employee's role in the development of the team, not about the individual in isolation.

Because a talent review maps the knowledge, talents and competencies of every employee, you can see where the gaps in your workforce potential lie and which knowledge, talents and competencies each team is still missing. Everyone is plotted in the talent review matrix. Together this gives a complete picture of how the available knowledge, talents and competencies are distributed across departments and business units. When organisations need to make a strategic shift, scale down, or put together the ideal team, a talent review offers enormous support.

Where does the Dutch name 'vlootschouw' come from?

The Dutch word for a talent review, 'vlootschouw', literally means fleet review, and dates back to the time when the Netherlands was still a seafaring nation: the Golden Age. Admirals in those days were keen to know the strength and potential of their navy. In other words: which people could win them the sea battle, and what was still missing.

How do you make your HR talent review a success?

A good talent review starts with a good strategy. Where do you want to be in the future, and which competencies will you need to get there? The next step is to assess, for each employee, whether they have those competencies and, if not, whether they have the potential to learn them.

An HR talent review supported by performance management software

With Treams Talent Review you get a clear view of your people's qualities with very little effort. Our software makes it easy to run reports that show, quickly and simply, which talents you already have in house and which ones you still need. Mapping this out gives you a solid basis for having a good conversation with your people. You can schedule a demo in moments or watch the demo video on the Treams website and experience the benefits for yourself.

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The talent review using the HR3P method

HR3P stands for 'Human Resources Performance Potential Portfolio' and is one way of carrying out a talent review. The method was developed in 1993 by Evers, van Laanen and Sipkens. It looks at the combination of performance and room for growth (potential). In the HR3P matrix you plot the name of every employee according to their score on these two axes.

More and more organisations, however, want to assess their people not only on performance and potential, but on cultural fit as well: how well does this person fit the culture of the organisation? You can do this by placing people in the matrix below as A, B, C or D players, looking at their productivity and at how well they match the organisation's core values.

• A players An A player is highly productive and also scores highly on core values.
• B players B players are not (yet) that productive, but score very highly on core values. If you want to make a change with the culture of your organisation at its heart, having plenty of B players matters. You can always make people more productive, but in that case the match with the culture is what counts most.
• C players C players are highly productive people, bringing in a lot of revenue for instance, but they do not fit the culture you want to move towards in the long term. These players are a significant risk to your organisation, because they can have a strong (negative) effect on the atmosphere and therefore on the people around them. They are not the people you would part ways with first, precisely because they are so productive. In the long run, though, they are a risk to the organisation. Think about that carefully.
• D players D players score low on productivity and low on core values. Look at whether you can turn these people into B or A players, or whether it is time to part ways.

One word of caution: talent depends on context. Someone who is a C player in your organisation may well be an A player somewhere else.