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Welcome to this special Best of October issue of Talent Edge Weekly.

First, a shout-out to Alexander Toro Alvarez, Head of HR Business Partnering at SBK Siemens, for referring new subscribers to Talent Edge Weekly. Thank you, Alexander, for your support of this newsletter!

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PRESENTED BY Lightcast

Work Intelligence You Can Trust: Using Skills, Tasks, and Jobs to Navigate the Future of Work

AI is changing how work gets done faster than most organizations can plan for it. But behind every job title, task analysis, and workforce plan are real people. The decisions leaders make now will shape what their organizations can do, and what it's like to work there, for years to come.

That's why the questions talent leaders are asking go well beyond "What can AI automate?" They're asking:

• What capabilities do we have today, and what will we need next?

• Where can technology help, and where do people add the most value?

• How do we bring leaders and employees along through the change?

Answering them with confidence takes more than internal data. Leaders need a connected, trusted view of jobs, skills, and tasks, grounded in what's happening across the wider labor market, so they can make the case for change and involve the people doing the work.

In Work Intelligence You Can Trust, Lightcast explains how organizations build that foundation and use it to keep their workforce ready for whatever comes next.

I. TALENT PRACTICES

Explores how investors assess human capital; determining true succession depth; redeploying talent as workforce needs change; assessing durable skills and skills-based strategies; and connecting talent reviews, development, and internal mobility, including talent hoarding.

ROI OF TALENT

The People Premium: Human Capital as a Driver of Value Creation in Private Markets | World Economic Forum

A new 30-page report examines how private-market investors assess and strengthen human capital to create business value. I highlight implications for evaluating collective leadership capabilities and strengthening succession.

In my 2016 article, Identifying Leadership Capabilities That Drive Business Performance, I outlined four steps for identifying the collective leadership capabilities needed to execute an organization’s business strategy. That article came to mind as I reviewed a new 30-page WEF report on how private-market investors, including private equity and venture capital firms, pension and sovereign wealth funds, and family offices, assess human capital pre-deal and strengthen it post-deal to create business value. Topics range from leadership assessment to internal mobility across portfolio companies. A Bain Capital example starting on page 11 connects to my article's emphasis on collective leadership capabilities. Its Team Acceleration Framework combines individual executive assessments into a team-level profile, recognizing that results depend not just on individual strengths for specific roles but also on leaders' ability to work together to execute strategy. Bain Capital then evaluates the profile against the two or three highest-priority business objectives to assess whether the team's collective capabilities align with what the business needs to accomplish. This also applies to succession planning. Individual readiness to step into a role matters, but organizations should also assess how successors would function collectively as a future leadership team, especially as AI continues to transform how organizations operate.

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SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession Planning: 5 Themes to Test Your Real Succession Depth | Brian Heger

My one-page reference sheet helps organizations test whether the names on their succession plans are realistic successors, using questions organized into 5 themes.

Organizations spend a lot of time and resources identifying and developing successors for critical roles. Yet many of these plans can become names on a page that never turn into successors. When this happens, we get a false sense of succession depth, meaning the plan shows more successors than we really have. We may have kept people on a plan long after their readiness stopped progressing, listed the same person on several plans without deliberately developing them for any of those roles, added names based on opinion without validation, or never confirmed that the successor is even interested in the role. Part of addressing this is challenging ourselves and the decision makers who are part of the discussions to critically evaluate those named on a succession plan. For example, when someone has been on a plan for multiple cycles with no change in readiness, at what point do they get removed from the succession plan? If a person is on several plans and those roles open at the same time, which one would we most likely place them in? To help, I created a one-page reference sheet with questions organized into five themes. Four of them test the names already on the succession plan, and the fifth looks for hidden candidates who are not on the plan but should be considered. Each theme includes questions to ask, insights HR practitioners can bring to the discussions, and a possible action.

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WORKFORCE PLANNING & INTERNAL MOBILITY

Workforce in Motion: Skills and Pathways to Future Jobs in The United States | McKinsey Global Institute

Examines how AI and other forces could reshape U.S. workforce demand through 2035, including four conditions that help assess whether workers can realistically transition into different types of work.

In strategic workforce planning, I've emphasized looking at how we can better leverage the capacity and capabilities of our existing workforce before assuming we need to acquire more talent. For example, I previously shared my one-pager on freeing up workforce capacity, including how ineffective ways of working can limit what teams accomplish. Another area is whether existing employees can move into roles as workforce needs change. This 82-page McKinsey report examines how AI and other forces may reshape U.S. workforce demand through 2035, including which occupations may grow or decline and how workers could transition between them. One part I found useful is its four conditions for assessing those transitions: 1) Future demand (whether the new role or its capabilities will be needed); 2) Skills adjacency (what skills transfer and what development is needed); 3) Wage preservation (whether the move would require a pay cut); and 4) Credentialing time (how long required qualifications would take). I'd add 5) Economic and business feasibility (whether redeployment makes sense compared with hiring or other options, given cost and timing). For example, an internal move may work when someone can be ready in time at reasonable cost. But if the skills gap is large or the need is urgent, hiring may be more practical, even after recruiting and onboarding.

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DURABLE SKILLS

Assessing Durable Skills in the Age of AI: A Framework for Employers | Business Roundtable

A new paper provides a framework with four characteristics of a strong skill signal for evaluating durable skills like critical thinking. I expand on one.

As AI changes how work gets done, organizations are placing more weight on durable skills, such as judgment and problem-solving, that people can apply across different roles, situations, and challenges, even as the nature of their work changes. Yet these skills can be difficult to assess. With AI helping candidates polish resumes and prepare interview answers, responses may not fully reflect their own judgment or experience. A new Business Roundtable report identifies four characteristics of a strong skill signal: behavior-anchored, standardized, multi-source, and AI-resilient. While the report and accompanying image explain all four characteristics, I want to expand on AI resilience, particularly how to distinguish a person's own capabilities from AI-assisted output. Three interview questions I think can help: 1) “What other options did you consider, and why did you rule them out?” (explores trade-offs); 2) “When might this approach fail?” (tests awareness of limitations); and 3) “What would you change if the budget were cut in half?” (reveals how they adjust their approach, make trade-offs, and decide what to prioritize when resources are constrained). These questions can provide a stronger signal of actual skills when used consistently. Whether for hiring, promotion, internal mobility, or development, how well do your talent practices incorporate the four characteristics of a strong skill signal? 

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SKILLS-BASED TALENT PRACTICES

Skills-Based Talent Metrics Toolkit | National Governors Association and Lightcast

A new 21-page toolkit for measuring whether skills-based talent strategies are working. I expand on removing academic degree requirements from job postings.

As more organizations claim that they are adopting skills-based talent practices, a common challenge is showing whether those practices are making a difference in the outcomes that matter most. This new 21-page toolkit, written for state governments but relevant to any employer, prioritizes nine metrics for measuring skills-based practices and outlines the data fields, calculation steps, and common data issues for each one. While the toolkit includes many useful insights, the one I want to focus on relates to academic degree requirements in job postings, since removing unnecessary ones is a common step toward skills-based hiring. The toolkit includes two separate measures here. The first is the share of postings that do not require a degree, which helps confirm whether a policy change has reached the job language candidates see. The second is the share of postings that offer multiple ways to signal competency, such as certifications, apprenticeships, assessment results, and military or other equivalent experience. This one matters because it shows whether jobs are becoming more skills-based, not just less degree-based, which are two separate things. As a bonus, here is my one-pager with nine questions to help evaluate whether an academic degree is essential in the first place for a given role.

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INTEGRATED TALENT STRATEGY

Talent Development Systems: Expanding Access, Capability and Internal Mobility | FAIR360

A 40-page toolkit explores how various talent practices connect. I highlight sections on talent reviews, internal mobility, and talent hoarding, while sharing three of my related resources.

Effective talent strategies draw on various levers to support business outcomes. Yet these levers, ranging from succession planning and talent development to performance management, skills strategy, and internal mobility, are sometimes approached as independent initiatives rather than interconnected parts of a broader talent management ecosystem. The more intentionally we connect them, the better positioned we are to develop and execute a holistic talent strategy. This 40-page toolkit explores those connections. Here are a few sections to highlight along with links to related resources I have created and shared in Talent Edge Weekly: 1) Talent reviews (p. 31): Identify development actions, owners, and follow-up. Relates to my eight talent review questions, including those that create accountability for developmental actions. 2) Internal mobility (p. 29): Examine barriers such as manager approval and compensation rules that discourage lateral moves. Relates to my one-pager on nine internal mobility barriers and tactics to address them. 3) Talent hoarding (p. 20): Address managers’ reluctance to release strong performers to other opportunities in the organization. Relates to my 10-statement manager diagnostic that helps managers gain self-awareness of behaviors that block internal talent movement. You can explore other sections of the toolkit that relate to your areas of interest.

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My Private Community, Talent Edge Circle 

Reading about talent practices is one thing. Putting them to work inside your organization is another, and that’s where Talent Edge Circle comes in. It’s my private community for internal HR practitioners who shape and execute talent strategy. You pressure-test your thinking with me and peers working on similar challenges, live and online, so you can turn your talent priorities into business value faster.

Applications for November have closed, and I’m now accepting applications for a few spots starting December 1. Apply by November 20 to be considered. Applications won’t reopen until January 2027.

If you’re looking for a trusted group of HR peers in similar roles to challenge your thinking and help you make faster progress, this is the place to do it.

🔓️ There are 10 more featured resources (and many bonus resources) in this issue, but you must be subscribed to view it. Subscribe Now (it’s free) or sign in if you are already a subscriber!