Talent Edge Weekly - Issue #330

The impact of AI on four future of work scenarios, five succession planning cheat sheets, unlocking the potential of internal talent marketplaces, Chief HR Officer impact, and using development roles strategically.

Author

Brian Heger
January 11, 2026

SPONSORED BY

Welcome to this issue of Talent Edge Weekly!

First, a shout-out to Kira Barden, Director of People Analytics and Research at Intuitive, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Kira, for your support of this newsletter!

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PRESENTED BY TechWolf

After 20 episodes of the TechWolf Podcast, here’s the blunt truth: Most companies treat skills like a data project. They’re wrong. Skills are a storytelling problem.

We’ve heard it again and again: HR teams burn quarters refining taxonomies and labeling spreadsheets. But data, no matter how clean, is inert without narrative. It's a frozen asset. And in the absence of a compelling story? The business defaults to whatever it was already doing.

Listen to our new 20th episode, where we talk with Marquita Williams and Mary Beth Thornton from AdventHealth, who explained that their skills journey at AdventHealth started long before they turned on their technology.

At TechWolf, we do one thing really well: get you the best, continuous data on jobs, skills, and tasks.

But even we admit it’s not the size of your ontology. It’s how fast you can turn workforce signals into a story your CEO can’t ignore.

P.S. - Catch up on other episodes with talks on skills data, AI, and strategic workforce planning.

THIS WEEK'S CONTENT

Below are links and descriptions of the topics covered in this issue. If you're interested in my deep dive, you can read the full newsletter.

Also, check out my job cuts tracker & Chief HR Officer move of the week, which is an excerpt from my CHROs on the Go platform (subscription-based), where I track hires, promotions, and exits in the Chief HR Officer role.

 â¬‡ď¸Ź Now let’s dive in!

THIS WEEK'S EDGE 

FUTURE OF WORK

A new 20-page white paper explores how AI advancements and talent trends could lead to four distinct future-of-work scenarios, with insights and actions recommended for each.

Over the past year, I’ve written several posts and shared resources on my website, brianheger.com, on scenario planning as a critical tool for envisioning possible business futures and informing talent strategies. Building on those resources, this new 20-page paper explores how AI advancements and talent trends, and their potential trajectories through 2030, could reshape the future of jobs. It outlines four future-of-jobs scenarios informed by two dimensions: 1) AI advancement: the pace and scale of progress in the capability and autonomy of AI technologies, and 2) Workforce Readiness: the availability of skills that prepare workers for an AI-driven economy. Together, these make up four distinct scenarios: 1) Supercharged Progress, 2) The Age of Displacement, 3) Co-Pilot Economy, and 4) Stalled Progress. While you’ll need to read the report to gain the full context for each scenario, one example is Supercharged Progress: AI advances at an extraordinary pace, reshaping industries, business models, and workflows as productivity and innovation accelerate through widespread adoption of advanced, agentic AI. While many jobs disappear, broad workforce readiness enables new roles to emerge and scale quickly, with humans increasingly orchestrating intelligent systems as governance, ethics, and social safety nets struggle to keep pace. Regardless of the scenario, page 16 provides nine “no regrets” moves, such as starting small, building fast, and scaling what works, that can help organizations prepare for multiple scenarios.

SUCCESSION PLANNING

A curated set of five of my succession planning cheat sheets, each anchored in a practical question the resource helps you address.

With succession planning continuing to be a top priority among Talent Edge Weekly readers, this post brings together five of my succession planning templates, bundled here for easier access. Each is anchored in a core question the resource helps you answer: 1) How can we tell if our succession plan is “just names on a page,” and what practical steps can we take to fix it? (Five common warning signs, plus actions to address them.) 2) Which events should trigger an off-cycle review of our succession plans so they remain aligned with business realities? (Nine example trigger events that may warrant a faster reassessment.) 3) How should we reevaluate which roles belong in our succession planning pool as strategy, technology, and expectations evolve? (A one-page template to assess whether roles and successors still fit.) 4) What level of transparency about successor status is right for our organization? (Includes reflection questions to help you decide whether limited, partial, or full transparency is right for your organization.) 5) How can metrics help tell a more complete story about the health and impact of our succession plan? (24 example succession metrics across eight areas, including retention and internal mobility.) If resources like these are helpful and you want to go deeper with me and other internal HR practitioners to advance your most critical talent priorities faster and with less friction, apply to my private community for internal HR practitioners, Talent Edge Circle.

INTERNAL MOBILITY

A new article based on a larger study presents a few findings on internal talent marketplaces, including the importance of information quality and context in enabling better internal matches. 

Internal mobility, the movement of employees across roles and opportunities within the same organization, is a critical component of talent management. In many organizations, internal mobility is enabled through an internal talent marketplace (ITM), often a technology-powered platform that uses AI to match employees and their skills and career preferences to internal roles and opportunities. In my work on skills, AI, and ITM, including my book chapter in SIOP’s Strategic Workforce Planning: Best Practices and Emerging Directions, I’ve outlined the benefits and challenges practitioners need to consider and plan for when implementing an ITM. A new HBR article builds on this topic by asking a central question: how do organizations best balance employee preferences for roles and development with business needs? The article is based on a study published in Management Science, which examined outcomes when employees selected opportunities based on their preferences versus when leaders assigned roles based on business priorities. While the article surfaces several findings, one worth highlighting is that employee decisions in ITMs were shaped primarily by the quality of information and context available to them. When employees lacked feedback on their strengths, signals about role requirements, and visibility into organizational priorities, they were less likely to pursue or be matched to roles where their skills could deliver near-term business value. To address this, the authors point to a hybrid approach in which employees can express interest in opportunities while the organization provides a clearer context on why a role may or may not be a good match. Other ideas are discussed.

CHIEF HR AND PEOPLE OFFICER

A new article examines how the CEO–CHRO pay ratio signals CHRO influence and relates to workforce and business outcomes.

The growing importance of human capital continues to elevate the role of the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO). However, the title alone does not indicate how much influence or strategic weight the role carries, as the scope and decision-making authority of the CHRO role vary widely across companies. A new article asks a central question: when do organizations move beyond rhetoric and actually treat human capital leadership as a strategic priority? To explore this, the study examines how differences in how firms position and compensate their CHRO relate to outcomes inside the organization, using the CHRO’s compensation relative to the CEO as a ratio-based indicator of influence. The authors find that organizations with higher CHRO pay ratios manage their workforce more intentionally, including higher turnover that reflects active talent upgrading, stronger hiring from competitors, and weaker matches exiting, along with more positive employee experiences. These workforce shifts are associated with stronger market performance. While the CHRO pay ratio is only one measure, it offers boards and leaders a practical way to assess whether CHRO influence and incentives align with stated human capital priorities. One practical question leaders can ask is: looking back at the most consequential business decisions made over the last 12 months, where did the CHRO meaningfully shape the direction or trade-offs, and where did they not? The answer often reveals whether CHRO influence is symbolic or truly embedded in critical decision-making that creates stakeholder value.

DEVELOPMENT

My slide to help evaluate if key development roles are used effectively to support talent growth and leadership pipeline flow.

In every organization, certain roles act as accelerators of development. These positions often enable individuals to build critical skills and gain meaningful experiences faster than in other roles. But when someone remains in one of these high-impact roles too long, without the interest or potential to move into larger, more complex roles, it can hinder both individual growth and organizational performance. Signs of stagnation often include disengagement, delayed succession readiness, and the departure of high-potential talent seeking development elsewhere. To keep development and leadership pipelines flowing, it’s essential to regularly assess whether these roles (often limited in supply) are being used to unlock opportunities for others. To jumpstart your thinking, here’s my one-page slide with guiding questions for managers: Has the person been in the same development role for an extended period without progression? Are they open to new responsibilities or stretch opportunities? Is their continued presence in the role limiting access to valuable experiences for successors? While there are other ways to accelerate development, such as short-term assignments, roles remain a meaningful and powerful source of growth. This topic can be woven into talent review discussions to support more informed and strategic talent decisions that strengthen organizational performance.

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