The new war on talent

A shift in trend

We've observed a notable trend emerging, one we haven't seen for some time. Movement at the senior level is picking up again, a shift we haven't witnessed since the post-COVID talent crisis that disrupted agencies around the globe. In recent years, our senior teams seemed to prioritise stability over bold career changes, opting to stay put. However, that's beginning to change again. We’ve begun to witness a clear uptick in mid-to-senior-level transitions, which could pose significant challenges for agencies if succession pipelines aren’t in place.

The risk of senior colleagues leaving

When mid-to-senior employees leave an agency, stability can be significantly impacted, particularly if succession planning is inadequate. Research shows that unexpected leadership turnover often leads to declines in financial performance, reduced employee engagement, and operational disruption. When people see their senior colleagues leaving, concerns start to grow, conversations start buzzing, and the uncertainty can spread throughout the agency causing an unwanted chain reaction.

Agencies with well-structured succession plans, clear communication strategies, and resilient cultures are generally better equipped to maintain stability during transitions. Most agencies have significant opportunities for improvement in this area, often implementing talent and succession processes in a fragmented way rather than fully embedding a strategic, well-structured approach.

Understanding the challenges

Many agencies I’ve worked with approach succession planning through traditional methods, primarily focusing on retaining top talent via performance appraisals and career planning tools. These typically aim to identify high-performing individuals and develop them accordingly. Talent mapping is another common practice, where mid-to-senior talent is assessed using the ubiquitous nine-box grid, with career plans supposedly put in place to support critical employees. Whilst this is useful to understand the current talent landscape, it often doesn’t link into proper, meaningful succession planning, I’ll explain.

In my experience, talent mapping often falls short of what’s truly needed. While it’s great that agencies are recognising their top talent, a crucial first step, the career plans designed for these high performers frequently fail to deliver real value, both for the individual and the agency. Proper career and succession planning needs to focus on the current skills and capability of employees as well as the future business requirements. You need to look ahead to what skills you will need in twelve to eighteen months and beyond and match these to current capabilities to develop robust succession plans. Mapping this out properly is a crucial additional step which many fail to review in detail.

Additionally, many department heads struggle to accurately place their team members on the traditional nine-box grid. More often than not, individuals are either placed in the top-right corner as ‘high performers’ or relegated to lower-ranking categories, often with little thought or genuine consideration. In some cases, the process is met with an eye roll, seen as just another HR ‘tick-box’ exercise rather than a meaningful talent assessment.

I've also witnessed overly complex processes where long validation meetings devolve into department heads debating their scores, turning the entire exercise into a pitch for their personal favourites.

Anticipating future needs and strategic upskilling

So, how do we crack the system? If I could give you one piece of advice right now, it would be to take a deep dive into your current skills and capabilities while keeping an eye on the future. A department made up of individuals with obsolete skills, or whose expertise could soon be overtaken by automation, won't require the same successors as a team operating at the cutting edge of their field. Succession planning isn’t just about filling roles, it’s about anticipating future needs and strategically upskilling to ensure seamless leadership transitions.

It’s not just critical roles that matter, but critical people too. Consider lateral moves across departments, identifying employees who bring unique value beyond their current skill set. If someone is a key asset to the organisation, how can you retain them, whether by upskilling for future needs or transitioning them into a role where their strengths continue to drive success. Shifting the focus from ‘jobs’ to ‘careers’ is a powerful strategy in the fight for retention. When employees see a future within your agency, rather than just a role, they’re more likely to stay and grow into leadership successors.

Rethinking the talent mapping process

At JourneyHR, we have rethought the talent mapping process entirely. We specialise in working with agencies and understand the unique challenges faced by both small and large enterprises. That’s why we’ve deconstructed traditional talent mapping and built a smarter, data-driven approach that’s both more accurate and less biased.

Our method replaces subjective debates with a structured, objective process. Department heads answer a series of targeted, pre-selected questions about an individual’s performance and potential, scoring them on a clear 1-5 scale. These scores are then aggregated to position employees on the 9-box grid, without department heads seeing the grid upfront. This ensures employees are placed based purely on data, eliminating bias and favouritism from the equation.

This approach ensures a more objective and evidence-based assessment by incorporating measurable performance and potential criteria. By validating employees upfront, the model provides a clearer, fairer, and more insightful view of your talent landscape. It also minimises the need for lengthy validation meetings, streamlining both the process and the overall time required.

Building on the mapping process, we then conduct a comprehensive assessment to identify skill and capability gaps against current and future requirements. This enables you to design targeted development plans that empower individuals for future success. By identifying critical talent loss and high flight-risk individuals, we can develop detailed succession plans that address gaps and recommend strategies to effectively support successors.

If you do one thing this year, make it looking ahead and anticipating the skills and capabilities your agency will need. Work with your senior team to map out the future talent landscape, assess current strengths, and pinpoint gaps. With thoughtful planning and development, you can retain your top talent and build a strong pipeline of future leaders.

Jessica Anderson-Ramshall is HR Director at JourneyHR

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