Leadership Foundation

BBC

The BBC has been establishing and developing its talent management and succession processes since 2010. The aim of the overall strategy is to have detailed and comprehensive information about their staff’s ability and potential, so as to have the right talent available to meet current and future business objectives.

The strategy makes use of a range of tools, including talent mapping. The BBC is committed to talent mapping because:

• It enables the organisation to have clarity about the skills needed to meet business objectives, and a clear, consistent and comprehensive picture of the talent and skills available, so that roles and people can be matched as closely as possible. The best use is made of the talent available.
• This enables good-quality succession planning for known vacancies, and diminishes the risk posed by unknown vacancies occurring. Because there is a clear picture of the talent available, plans can be put in place for developing a pool of people internally and matching development plans to organisational need, or recruiting for it externally.
• Talent mapping results in a consistent approach which provides transparency but also facilitates movement around the organisation.
• People feel valued knowing that their leaders are proactively engaged in thinking about their development. They benefit from clear career direction. Development plans can be matched to organisational and individual need.

Because processes are consistent and transparent, performance conversations with managers are of a high quality, which results in clear actions for those identified as successors and improvement plans for poor performance. In addition, those who perform well but may not have potential for promotion can still be recognised by the organisation and developed appropriately through this process.