Potential and succession

The long-term viability of organisations depends on having a strong leadership pipeline that ensures continuity and growth. In fact, the top two strategic concerns for HR executives in the Middle East are recruitment and selection, and talent management.

In Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, there is also a heavy reliance on expatriates to meet key skill demands. Investing in the calibration and development of the talent pipeline of graduates, high-potentials and successors is a critical step, particularly with the ageing workforce profiles in many companies.

Identifying talent

Identifying the best talent with high-potential and for succession is critical for the long-term leadership pipeline and building bench strength.

Harvard Business Review, identified four “X” factors that are common among high-potential employees. High-potential employees, Ready et al contend, are all hardwired with the following traits:

A drive to excel
A catalytic learning ability
An enterprising spirit
Dynamic sensors

A leadership survey conducted by UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School found that while many talent management professionals reported a high demand for high-potential talent, nearly half (47%) said their current high-potential talent pool did not meet their anticipated needs, and 65% said they were only slightly or moderately confident in their organisation’s ability to fill mission-critical roles.

We work with HR and talent management professionals to develop a systematic, criteria-based approach to identify high-potential employees and successors, which also reinforces the perception of consistency and objectivity. Our three-step process is:

Analyse workforce data and identify future executive and management requirements
Develop objective criteria to identify an initial talent pool
Assess and rank selected talent using objective best practice tools and methods

High-potential and succession capability

Having identified the best and brightest, their development and career planning must be carefully designed and managed. We help you achieve this in five steps:

Assess the level of succession capability using a best practice framework
Design development solutions to fit the talent demographic
Manage or support solution implementation
Deliver tailored development
Evaluate effectiveness

The development of high-potentials and successors is achieved using:

Mentoring and coaching
Simulations
Action learning
Mobility
Project assignments
Experiential learning
Classroom learning
On-the-job learning projects

We are ready to help you harness the power of the talent in your organisation by providing consulting and training services that will enable the application of best-practice into your organisation.

Graduate development

The 2014 MENA Labour Market Index indicated that one of the most critical sources of talent for organisations is the quality and availability of entry-level candidates. The data shows that only 17% of entry level candidates are considered ‘excellent’ when rated on overall quality. With over 60% [IFC, 2011] of the population under the age of 30, developing this talent pool needs to be a top priority.

The top five areas for development in National entry-level candidates are:

Technical skills
Effective communication skills
Work ethics
Time management
Team work and collaboration

We have used this data to create accelerated graduate programmes that are designed to target the skill gap and make each candidate an effective part of an organisation.

We can design a programme around your specific needs or you could select from our suite of graduate and nationalistion options: