Connect your talent plan to your strategic plan

Companies that connect their talent planning to their strategic planning do better. In your strategic planning process, your credit union identifies the most important business opportunities and develops strategies to capitalize upon them. In your talent planning, your organization identifies and quantifies the key roles and responsibilities within your organization and allocates talent to capitalize upon them. Alignment of your strategic planning and your human capital planning should involve all levels of the organization, from the staff, through senior management and up to and including your credit union’s board.

You need the right positions and the right people to execute strategy, and for strategy to succeed, rigorous human capital planning must be the rule. Think about the top value creation positions within your credit union and where they are located within the organization. A fresh look at your existing positions will yield new insights. Start by considering current jobs and the goals that each position is designed to accomplish. Then consider the skills of the person needed to realize those objectives. Focus on the outcome you want the position to create, and don’t limit your thinking to the qualities of the employee currently in that position. They may or may not be the right fit. Use quantitative measures for each position’s value to the organization. Apply the same analysis of talent to the positions that do not yet exist, but must be created for your strategy to succeed.

Every position should add value to the organization. Yet some positions contribute much more than others. When organizations take a deep dive into the roles with the highest value creation, they generally find that essential positions are filled by people at various organizational levels. Key value-driving roles often do not match the levels on your organizational chart. In fact, your analysis will probably discover that some positions are so important that it would be difficult to function without them, and these positions can be at levels well below the C-suite. Because of their lack of seniority, key positions may not get senior level attention and could be overlooked. The lack of recognition and reward for people in key roles can cause retention and motivation problems, to the detriment of the organization.

Extend your talent analysis to your credit union’s board. All too often board recruitment relies on word of mouth and friends of the current board. This is a formula for a uniformity in thinking that can lack the broader perspective that today’s world requires. Continuous technological, tax and regulatory changes in financial services require open-minded creative thinking to grasp business needs and opportunities in new ways. Board members have a duty to provide fellow board members with innovative ideas and new approaches. The right talent mix is needed for your board, just as it is with your entire organization.

Talent planning complements your strategy. The strategic planning process guides your organization from where you are now to where you want to be in the future, and your human capital plan makes that strategy a reality. The key positions within your credit union have the strongest affect on strategic advancement. Allocating the best talent to those positions gives power to your strategy.

Stuart R. Levine

Stuart R. Levine

Founded in 1996, Stuart Levine & Associates LLC is an international strategic planning and leadership development company with focus on adding member value by strengthening corporate culture. SL&A ... Web: www.Stuartlevine.com Details