Measuring Bench Strength For Critical Roles

Bench strength is measured with four numbers for each critical role. They are whether a ready-now successor exists, how many different people stand behind the role, and how soon each could move. The fourth is whether any person is counted on more than one plan. Scores attach to positions, and each person counts once.

Most organisations report one percentage, the share of critical roles with a named successor.

That percentage treats a role as covered when a single unready name sits on the plan.

The measures below correct for this, and they can be built from a succession spreadsheet without a platform.

They give an HR adviser a short list of exposed roles to put in front of the leadership team, each with its evidence.

Bench Strength Defined

Bench strength is the supply of people who could fill a defined set of roles, and how soon they could do it.

Sparkman defines the succession readiness rate as the share of key roles with one or more identified and adequately prepared successors.

The definition contains two judgements, identified and adequately prepared, and every measure below tests one of them.

Smith and Campbell describe the talent assessment grid as a snapshot of the succession pipeline and leadership bench strength.

A grid plots people, so it cannot show whether a given role has anyone behind it.

The limits of that display are set out in nine box grids and their limits.

Critical Roles First

The denominator comes before the numerator, so the list of roles is agreed before anyone names a successor.

A role is critical when it meets at least one of three tests.

• A vacancy would delay a commitment the business has made within six months

• An external hire would take longer to land than the business can wait

• The holder carries a licence, a client relationship or knowledge nobody else has

Those tests are practitioner judgement, and each business head can adjust them, provided the adjustments are written down.

Sparkman warns of a disproportionate focus on top executive roles, which leaves equally important positions outside the C-suite without attention.

The list should therefore reach below the executive team, as described in succession planning for critical roles below the top.

Keep the list short enough that the leadership team reads every line.

Tie each role to its position rather than to the person who holds it, which keeps scores comparable from one review to the next.

Readiness Bands With Evidence

Four bands are enough, and each needs a written definition before anyone is placed in one.

• Ready now. Has performed at the scope of the destination role, for example in an acting appointment, and could start within three months

• Ready within a year. Has the core experience and lacks one named assignment or exposure

• Ready in one to two years. Has the potential for the role and lacks two or more named elements

• No successor identified. Nobody on the plan meets the lowest band

The bands do not overlap, so a successor sits in only one of them.

Each placement carries the evidence behind it, such as the assignment performed, the assessment used or the rating history.

Research from CEB in 2013 suggests that executives continue to rely predominantly on their own intuition for important talent decisions.

Where a band rests on intuition alone, the ready-now count deserves the most scrutiny, because it is the figure the leadership team will rely on.

The evidence standard for a named claim is covered in the trouble with high potential lists.

Coverage And Depth

Three ratios describe how well the roles are covered.

• Ready-now coverage. Critical roles with at least one ready-now successor, divided by all critical roles

• No-successor rate. Critical roles with nobody identified, divided by all critical roles

• Successor depth. Different people named in any band, divided by critical roles

Sparkman notes that the number of successors per role is often overlooked, and that more qualified successors indicate a pipeline able to handle unexpected change.

A role with exactly one named successor is one resignation or one outside offer away from having none.

Take a hypothetical list of twelve critical roles.

Seven have a ready-now successor, two have a successor ready within a year, and three have nobody.

Ready-now coverage is 7 of 12, or 58 per cent, and the no-successor rate is 3 of 12, or 25 per cent.

Report the counts beside the percentages, because on a list of twelve one role moves a percentage by eight points.

Targets are the harder question.

Vendor guides on this topic publish thresholds such as 70 per cent coverage or two ready-now successors per role, with no research cited in the guides reviewed.

Set targets by role family with the business head.

An executive role may require a ready-now name, while a technical role with a strong external market may accept a one-year band.

Gross And Net Strength

Gross bench strength counts every successor entry across all plans, divided by the entries needed.

Net bench strength counts each person once, divided by the same number needed.

Take ten critical roles that each need two successors, which makes twenty entries.

Sixteen entries are filled, so gross strength is 80 per cent.

Those sixteen entries are nine different people, one of whom appears on five plans, so net strength is 9 of 20, or 45 per cent.

A person takes one job at a time, so a name on five plans covers one vacancy.

Two supporting measures show where the duplication sits.

• Successor overlap. Successors named on more than one plan, divided by all named successors

• Concentration. Successors from the largest contributing function, divided by all successors

A high concentration figure means a reorganisation or a hiring freeze in one function would empty several plans together.

Time To Ready

A readiness band is a promise about timing, and the measure is whether the promise holds.

Movement is the share of successors who advanced one band within twelve months of the previous review.

A successor who stays in the same band for two or three review cycles needs a conversation about the missing assignment.

General Mills found that varied experiences, such as high-impact global assignments and accelerated assignments within a function, develop talent differentially.

Movement therefore depends on whether successors receive such assignments, which is a deployment decision that HR shares with line leaders.

The design of those assignments is covered in job rotation programmes that fill talent gaps.

Sparkman adds time to competency, which tracks how long a successor takes to reach full proficiency after promotion.

It lags the other measures and can be reported once a few promotions have happened.