PRESENTED BY

Welcome to this special Best of December issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Raffaella Rossini, Head of Employee Experience at lastminute, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Raffaella, for your support of this newsletter!

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PRESENTED BY Talent Edge Circle

As an internal HR practitioner, you don’t have to do this work alone.

Talent Edge Circle is my private, application-based community for internal HR practitioners.

It’s an intentionally curated community and led by me, bringing together practitioners in similar roles and at similar levels who share common priorities and challenges. This keeps the focus on the work that matters most.

You’ve been supporting everyone else. Now it’s your turn to get the support you need. Apply today to start the new year with greater clarity and confidence.

THIS MONTH’S CONTENT

The Best of December issue includes the most popular resources from the December issues of Talent Edge Weekly, AND resources that are useful for this time of year. The 11 resources are:

• Talent Strategy Mix: 12 Examples of Tactics | Brian Heger

• 8 Questions to Determine If a Vacant Role Needs to be Filled | Brian Heger

• Linking HR Results to the Business Outcomes They Support | Brian Heger

• Framing Talent Initiatives Within the Business Context | Brian Heger

• New Economy Skills: Unlocking the Human Advantage | World Economic Forum

• A Faster Way to Build Future Scenarios | MIT Sloan Management Review

• Agentic AI Isn’t Just Joining the Workforce. It’s Reshaping how Organizations Plan for It | Deloitte Insights

• The Essential Guide to Agentic AI: How to Compete in an Autonomous Future | IBM Institute for Business Value

• New Research on AI and Fairness in Hiring | Harvard Business Review

• Is Your Succession Plan Just a List of Names on a Page? Five Signs, Indicators, and Fixes | Brian Heger

• Performance Calibration Discussions: 10 Questions to Help Managers Reflect on Employees’ Year-End Performance | Brian Heger

This issue has many bonus resources, including information about layoffs and Chief HR Officer hires and promotions during December.  

I hope you enjoy this issue, and I appreciate your readership of Talent Edge Weekly.

🎉 Wishing you a happy and healthy 2026, and I look forward to continuing to share ideas, practices, and resources in the new year!

TALENT STRATEGY

Talent Strategy Mix: 12 Examples of Tactics | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with 12 talent tactics that help organizations determine when each approach works well, when it doesn’t, and examples of them in practice.

Every organization has a talent strategy to enable its business strategy. However, determining the right mix of talent tactics can be challenging, given the range of options, including hiring, outsourcing, internal movement, and upskilling. While each tactic has advantages, the most effective strategies usually combine multiple approaches. To help evaluate which combination may work best, my one-page sheet summarizes 12 example tactics, outlining what each entails, when it works well or not, and real-world examples. For instance, upskilling, which enhances existing or adjacent skills, works well when roles are evolving, employees have a solid foundation, and business needs can be met through targeted development. It is less effective when foundational skills are lacking or a rapid transformation is required. A practical example is a bank introducing digital literacy programs for frontline staff to adapt to new financial tech. Redeployment, which assigns employees to priority roles, is effective when urgent business shifts require internal agility and employees possess transferable skills aligned with emerging needs. It is less effective when there is a poor skill match or a high risk of disrupting critical teams. An example of redeployment is a retail brand redeploying store managers into e-commerce fulfillment roles during a digital transition. Although there is more to talent strategy than what appears on my cheat sheet, this resource offers a helpful starting point for evaluating options and facilitating discussions.

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TALENT ACQUISITION

8 Questions to Determine If a Vacant Role Needs to be Filled | Brian Heger

My cheat sheet with questions to help leaders decide whether to backfill vacant roles, reducing the costly cycle of overhiring.

Hiring talent is a crucial part of an organization’s talent strategy. However, managers often default to talent acquisition (hiring more people) as a reactive response to meet work demand. As I’ve tracked thousands of layoffs through my layoff tracker, a common theme emerges: many organizations cite “overhiring” as a reason for workforce reductions, resulting in costly cycles of hiring, layoffs, and rehiring. Although better workforce planning and talent forecasting can help minimize the likelihood of overhiring, another important practice is to be intentional about whether a role truly needs to be backfilled when it becomes vacant. Rather than automatically replacing someone, leaders and talent partners can ask sharper questions, such as “Has the business context changed since the role was created?” and “How likely is this role to remain vital over the next two years?” to guide a more informed decision. To help facilitate these discussions, my one-page cheat sheet offers eight questions to spark deeper evaluation and better hiring choices. As AI reshapes how work gets done, questions like these can help reduce the cycle of overhiring and the job cuts that often follow. And with 2026 just a few days away, now is an ideal moment to step back, reassess open roles, and determine which ones truly need to be filled and which ones warrant a different solution.

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HR’S BUSINESS IMPACT

Linking HR Results to the Business Outcomes They Support | Brian Heger

An excerpt slide from my private Talent Edge Circle community that shows an example of how year-end HR results contribute to various business outcomes.

As many HR leaders and their teams begin summarizing the outcomes they delivered this year, it is impactful to organize accomplishments by the business results they enabled rather than simply listing activities completed. One approach is to start with the business outcome of greatest importance and use a few reflection questions to surface the accomplishments that best demonstrate impact. For example, if Revenue Growth is a priority (e.g., increasing income through higher sales, customer acquisition, or market expansion), you might ask: How did our talent practices strengthen the capabilities of revenue-impacting teams? Where did workforce decisions (hiring, development, mobility) support growth priorities? How did we ensure the right people were in the right roles to enable expansion? These are simply starting points that you can adjust to your context. And while Revenue Growth is one example, the same approach can be applied to outcomes such as Profitability and Margin Improvement, Operational Efficiency, Customer Experience and Satisfaction, and Strategic Agility and Organizational Adaptability, among others. To make this easier to put into practice, I’m sharing an excerpt slide from my private community, Talent Edge Circle. The slide shows a full example linked to all five business outcomes.

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HR IN BUSINESS CONTEXT

Framing Talent Initiatives and Objectives Within the Business Context | Brian Heger

My one-page slide with an example of framing HR initiatives in the context of the business and the business problems they address.

With the start of the new year just a few days ahead, HR teams are developing, refining, and prioritizing the initiatives that will help create stakeholder value in the months to come. While there are many ways to determine which HR efforts can unlock the greatest value, one effective approach is anchoring those initiatives in the real business problems they are intended to solve. To support this, I am sharing an excerpt slide from a broader deck I developed for the Talent Edge Circle. The example focuses on workforce planning and includes the business problem being addressed, supporting stats that reinforce the issue, a high-level talent solution, and a final section that highlights the cost of waiting or not acting now. This last component is especially important, as it is often overlooked when presenting to executive teams. Not taking action is still a decision, and it carries risks. Making those risks clear up front helps articulate the downside of inaction and strengthens the case for moving forward. I also recommend including a second slide with a high-level, phased implementation plan, which helps translate the proposal into clear next steps. Talent Edge Circle members received this additional slide in the full deck.

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SKILLS

New Economy Skills: Unlocking the Human Advantage | World Economic Forum

A new 39-page white paper provides guidance on skills that should be prioritized to ensure organizations have the talent to deliver on innovation, resilience, and growth priorities.

This new 39-page white paper provides guidance on the skills organizations should prioritize to ensure they have the talent needed to deliver on innovation, resilience, and growth priorities. As the first installment in a broader series, it focuses on human-centric skills—uniquely human capabilities such as collaboration, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence that enable effective interaction, problem-solving, and decision-making. While AI adoption continues to rise, these human skills remain essential for driving innovation and adaptability. The paper covers everything from the supply and demand of human-centric skills, with a breakdown by industry and geographic region, to tactics for developing, assessing, and credentialing these capabilities. One section beginning on page 30 includes seven case studies showing how organizations are embedding human-centric skills at scale. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) uses AI-powered simulations to help learners practice customer conversations and strengthen their problem-solving skills. PwC uses verified digital credentials to recognize behaviors like inclusive leadership. Udemy offers adaptive AI role plays that help learners rehearse difficult conversations and build confidence. Together, these examples show how organizations are scaling the development of human-centric skills in an AI-enabled world.

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SCENARIO PLANNING & AI

A Faster Way to Build Future Scenarios | MIT Sloan Management Review

A new article offers a streamlined approach to scenario planning that leverages AI to navigate future uncertainties more efficiently.

I’ve made several posts about how scenario planning (SP), which involves envisioning and planning for multiple futures an organization might face, is a critical tool for workforce and talent planning. One of my cheat sheets helps HR and business leaders align workforce plans with potential business scenarios. That said, SP can be hard to execute in practice, often requiring significant time, coordination, and expertise. A new MIT Sloan Management Review article shares ideas on how organizations can apply accelerated SP, including using AI as a brainstorming partner. One useful insight is how two companies, Fazer and Unum Ltd., have put these concepts into action. Fazer, a Nordic fast-moving consumer goods company, used this approach to identify a small set of critical assumptions related to climate change and the availability of key raw materials across its portfolio, including confectionery, bakery and breakfast products, plant-based drinks, and other food innovations. It then used AI to deepen research on environmental trends and turn workshop insights into scenarios that helped leaders rethink strategy, operations, and talent needs across different futures. While AI can speed up scenario creation and analysis, effective SP still depends on leaders’ judgment to assess plausibility and apply insights to talent and workforce decisions. Blending both approaches can provide a strategic advantage.

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There is much more content in this issue, but you must be subscribed (or logged in if you are a subscriber) to access the rest. It is FREE to sign up, and a new issue comes out every Sunday, 6 PM EST! ⬇️