Insights, ResearchAnd Resources
Articles, tools and templates for practitioners in HR, talent and organisation development, on succession, workforce planning, assessment, change, measuring HR impact, politics and influence. Each draws on published research and on practice in large organisations.
Gen Z In The Workplace, Minus The Stereotypes
Many claims about Gen Z at work describe early-career employees in a difficult labour market, and an HR team can test which explanation fits its own people.
Read the researchLatest
ArticleInternal Mobility Metrics Without A PlatformMeasuring HR Impact · 7 minArticleJob Rotation As A Talent Gap StrategyWorkforce And Future Skills · 8 minArticleSeeing Talent Below The Top TeamTalent Reviews And Succession · 8 minArticleEntry-Level Cuts And The Leadership PipelineWorkforce And Future Skills · 8 minTalent Reviews And Succession
The 9 Box Grid And Its Limits
The 9 box grid sorts a population quickly, and it carries decisions only when potential is defined against a named role and every placement has an example.
8 min read
Succession Planning For Critical Roles
Succession risk below the executive team sits in roles that would stop the work if empty, and the list holds only when each label carries a consequence.
7 min read
The Population A Talent Review Covers
The decisions a review must make set its population. Each list needs its own written entry test before anyone proposes a name.
7 min read
Succession Planning After A Sudden Exit
An emergency succession plan below board level names who holds decisions on the first morning, tests the successor, and keeps interim cover apart from the permanent appointment.
7 min read
Running A Talent Review That Changes Decisions
A talent review changes decisions when the group agrees the evidence rule beforehand, closes on named actions with owners and dates, and audits them afterwards.
10 min read
Seeing Talent Below The Top Team
Visibility of leadership potential drops below the top team. A cross-unit forum, run on one page per unit and a written evidence standard, is the method for seeing it.
8 min readAssessment And Performance
What Selection Methods Predict
The 2022 revision of the 1998 validity ranking puts structured interviews first. An HR adviser can use it to choose methods and to answer a hiring manager.
9 min read
Performance Ratings Under Pressure
Calibration changes ratings only when managers bring dated evidence and the facilitator holds the standard, including when the budget has already set the distribution.
7 min read
The Trouble With High Potential Lists
A high potential list is sound when each name is tied to a named role, carries evidence and a derailment check, and is scored against what followed.
8 min readLearning And Capability
Competency Frameworks, Rebuilt Around Work
A competency framework stays in use when it starts from the work, attaches to one decision and has descriptors that two assessors would read the same way.
9 min read
Training Needs Analysis When The Solution Is Already Chosen
A request that names a course describes a means. The analysis states the result gap, tests four non-training causes and recommends with a measure.
9 min read
Leadership Development And The Transfer Problem
Leadership programmes transfer to the job when design, delivery and the work environment support them. The evidence, a worked sequence and the sponsor conversation.
9 min readWorkforce And Future Skills
Job Architecture Before Pay Bands
Pay bands need levels to attach to, and the EU Pay Transparency Directive makes the structure under the titles a legal question as well as a pay one.
10 min read
Building A Skills Inventory From The Work
A skills inventory earns its use when it starts from a decision and the task, covers one capability family, and records how each rating was evidenced.
8 min read
Workforce Planning During A Hiring Freeze
Workforce planning during a hiring freeze starts from the work, ranks vacancies by business consequence and gives finance costed options for each exception.
9 min read
Job Rotation As A Talent Gap Strategy
A job rotation programme closes a talent gap when the role, the person, the cover and the evidence are agreed with both managers before it starts.
8 min read
Entry-Level Cuts And The Leadership Pipeline
Before the business stops hiring junior staff, an HR adviser can map where current leaders learned their judgement and price the cost of filling those roles externally.
8 min readAI In Talent Work
Prompts A Practitioner Can Defend
A prompt an HR practitioner can defend is recorded with its output, names roles instead of people, and is checked by a named person before use.
6 min read
AI In Learning Design
AI drafts learning material quickly and cannot tell whether training was the right answer. The article sets out which design tasks to hand over and who checks each one.
5 min read
Where AI Belongs In Talent Work
AI in talent management works when the machine drafts and a named practitioner decides, and when the function audits whether people still check what the machine produces.
7 min read
AI Agents In The Team: What HR Owns
When AI agents join a team, HR owns accountability, the task split, role and review changes, and the records, and writes them into a one-page agreement.
8 min read
The HR Team's AI Skills Gap
The AI skills for HR professionals that matter first are habits of checking and judgement, and a four-week sequence on real work builds them.
7 min readPolitics And Influence
Challenging A Leader You Advise
A leader who owns a decision can be challenged safely when the adviser tests the facts, states a dated prediction and commits to carry out whatever is decided.
8 min read
Managing Up Without Flattery
Managing up works for an HR adviser when the leader hears one unwelcome point a month and every update states the fact in its first sentence.
8 min read
Power Maps Before A Decision
A power map names who can sign, stop or shape one decision, what each person stands to lose, and the order in which to talk to them.
7 min read
Influencing Without Authority From Inside HR
An HR adviser influences a budget holder by pricing the problem in the leader's own numbers and closing every meeting on a first step with a date.
8 min readCredibility With The Business
Writing An HR Business Case
An HR business case prices the cost of the gap, compares the options including doing nothing, and gives Finance a break-even test it can check.
8 min read
Contracting With An Internal Client
Contracting with an internal client means agreeing the purpose, each side's contribution, the other parties and an end date before any design work starts.
10 min read
Root Cause Analysis For HR Requests
Root cause analysis in HR begins with rewriting the request as a problem statement, then splitting the problem until the cause shows, before any solution is chosen.
10 min readConversations With Leaders
Redundancy Conversations, Done Properly
A redundancy conversation script works when the HR partner has prepared the leader first: the reason, the selection record and the three questions employees ask.
11 min read
Difficult Conversations Managers Keep Postponing
Managers delay difficult conversations for lack of skill, from fear or for want of evidence, and each cause needs different preparation from HR.
9 min read
Constructive Feedback That Changes What People Do
Constructive feedback changes behaviour when it names an observable change and a date to check it, and when nothing at work rewards the old habit.
7 min read
Telling Someone They Are Not On The HiPo List
Whether to tell employees they are high potential depends on a disclosure policy agreed before the review, and on a conversation for those not chosen.
10 min readFacilitation And Meetings
Designing A Two Day Offsite
A two day offsite earns its cost when the sponsor agrees the decisions, the decision rule and the interview themes before the venue is booked.
9 min read
Disagreement In A Leadership Meeting
A leadership meeting handles disagreement when the facilitator names whether it concerns facts, options or decision rights and records dissent before the meeting ends.
7 min read
Running A Workshop On Video
A video workshop reaches decisions when blocks stay short, input is written before it is spoken, and each block names the decision it produces.
6 min read
Workshops That End In Decisions
A workshop ends in a decision when the sponsor states the decision rule beforehand and the close records an owner, a date and any dissent.
7 min readChange And Adoption
Why Pilots Do Not Scale
A pilot succeeds on conditions a rollout loses, so the scale decision has to be agreed with the business owner before the pilot begins.
7 min read
Changing Culture By Changing Rules
Culture changes when a named leader changes one rule that produces the current behaviour, applies it in a visible decision and measures the result from records.
9 min read
Announcing A Restructure
A restructure announcement holds when affected people hear first and in person, managers are briefed the evening before, and every open question carries a date.
9 min read
Why Change Programmes Stall At The Middle
Middle managers stall a programme when targets, decision rights, time and answers are left unchanged, and the sponsor holds all four.
8 min readCoaching Practice
Building An Internal Coaching Pool
An internal coaching programme depends on scope, selection, supervision and a three-way contract agreed before training starts, with measures the sponsor accepts after year one.
10 min read
When Coaching Is The Wrong Answer
Coaching fits when the person wants change, controls it and faces no undisclosed decision. Four questions put to the requesting manager test each condition.
8 min read
The Manager As Coach
A manager can coach a direct report when the conversation names the dual role of authority and stake and the manager tells wherever the situation requires it.
9 min read
Mentoring Beyond The Matching Exercise
Mentoring programmes fail after matching when nobody has agreed the purpose, the mentor's time or the review, and the sponsor receives no report.
8 min readMeasuring HR Impact
Exit Interviews Worth Reading
Exit interview data gets read when the questions trace the decision to leave and the report names one finding, its cost and its owner.
8 min read
The Engagement Survey Action Plan Problem
An engagement survey action plan works when a named executive changes one decision and the plan states in advance what the next survey must show.
8 min read
People Analytics Without A Data Team
One decision, three exports and a spreadsheet are enough for a first project. The guide sets out the measures, the evidence standard and the conversation with the business leader.
9 min read
Training Evaluation That Survives The Budget Review
Agree the indicator, baseline, comparison, timing and owner before design. The frameworks, the return on investment arithmetic and the conversation with finance.
8 min read
Internal Mobility Metrics Without A Platform
Seven measures an HR adviser can build from existing records, each with a stated definition, a base and a way to read it.
7 min readAttracting And Keeping Talent
Internal Mobility And The Hoarding Manager
Talent hoarding follows from how managers are measured. Bounded release dates, funded cover and a disclosure rule change the incentive, and one conversation handles a manager blocking a move.
7 min read
The First Ninety Days After Hiring
Early leavers are read by manager and hiring source before anything is redesigned. The fix sits in the promise made before the offer and the manager's first six weeks.
7 min read
Gen Z In The Workplace, Minus The Stereotypes
Many claims about Gen Z at work describe early-career employees in a difficult labour market, and an HR team can test which explanation fits its own people.
7 min readTeam Effectiveness
Decision Rights Inside A Team
A decision rights framework for a team lists each recurring decision with a recommender, a decider, a limit and an informing rule, built from last quarter's evidence.
10 min read
Team Diagnosis Before Team Building
Hackman's five conditions explain why team building fails on structural problems, and a one-week diagnostic shows which condition is broken before anyone books an away day.
9 min read
Psychological Safety Beyond The Survey Score
A team score records a shared belief and leaves behaviour unmeasured. The article shows what it supports, how to report it and how to act on a low result.
8 min readOne Complete Tool, Free
Capability and Future-Skill Elicitation, the first tool in Trusted Talent Advisor, with its brief, fillable canvas and worked example.