How to Align Your Talent Strategy With Your Business Goals
Fourth quarter is rapidly approaching, and every business leader I know is spending significant time planning for the upcoming year. What are our revenue goals? Our budget? Our growth opportunities?
All of this is crucial for success. But perhaps the most important question for long-term success is this: Who is going to make all of this happen?
A business strategy and a talent strategy cannot be developed independently. A talent strategy connects your organization’s goals to the people, skills, and leadership capabilities required to achieve them. Most importantly, it is not simply a list of open positions or a projected headcount number.
A headcount plan asks: “How many people do we need?” A talent strategy asks: “What does the business need to accomplish, and who will be able to make that happen?”
Start with the end in mind.
What exactly is the business trying to accomplish? The answer should drive the talent strategy. Is the company entering a new market? Launching a product? Opening another location? Investing in automation? Preparing for an acquisition? Trying to improve profitability after a period of rapid growth?
Different business objectives create different talent needs and different investments.
A company pursuing aggressive growth may need stronger sales leadership or additional operational capacity. An organization focused on profitability may need a finance leader who can translate data into meaningful business decisions. A manufacturer investing in automation may need technical expertise, but also leaders who can help employees navigate significant change.
We advise our clients to begin by asking which capabilities the business needs next, and whether those capabilities currently exist within the organization.
Identify the people you cannot afford to lose.
This is a tough one. Sometimes the best and most crucial players are the ones who fly under the radar. Who would create the most significant gap if they resigned tomorrow? Who holds important institutional knowledge? Who consistently delivers excellent work? Who has quietly taken on responsibilities beyond the role they were originally hired to perform?
All of these questions should help guide retention conversations. In my experience, a counter-offer rarely solves an underlying issue. Once someone has made up their mind to leave, simply more money will not keep them for long. Retention begins well before someone submits a resignation.
Determine who is ready for more.
You may not need to hire externally — you may have someone on your team who is ready for more responsibility and more leadership. Which employees are ready for broader responsibility? Who demonstrates leadership even without a leadership title? Who understands the business beyond the boundaries of their current role? Who could grow into a critical position with the right coaching, exposure, or training?
The hardest situation may be when someone thinks they are ready for more, but they are not—at least not yet. An outstanding individual contributor may not be prepared for leadership, or an employee may still need to develop certain skills before taking the next step.
But honest conversations can still help everyone land in a good place. They also help you, as the leader, understand which capabilities can be developed internally and which ones you may need to bring in from outside the organization.
Be Honest About the Gaps.
This is often the least comfortable part of talent planning, and honestly, it’s one I don’t love myself. Where are we as an organization tolerating a performance or capability gap?
Is an employee struggling because expectations are unclear? Do they need better training, stronger management, or additional resources? Has the role changed while the job description stayed the same? Or is the person simply no longer the right fit for what the business needs?
Avoiding these questions does not make the problem disappear. Usually, it places more pressure on the strongest employees, who quietly compensate for the gap.
Clear expectations give people a genuine opportunity to improve. And when improvement is not possible, clarity allows both the employee and the organization to make better decisions.
Work Backward From When You Need Results
If a future business goal depends on hiring someone new, work backward from when that person needs to be fully productive.
It usually takes far longer to fully integrate someone into a role than we might think. Hiring someone is not the same as having them successfully operating in the role. A true interview process, notice period, and onboarding take time and intentionality.
Before launching a search, ask:
When does this person need to be contributing independently?
What will they need to accomplish in the first six to twelve months?
Which skills are essential, and which can be developed?
Is the compensation aligned with the level of talent required?
Who needs to participate in the interview and decision-making process?
How much time will onboarding realistically require?
Remember That Employees Are Evaluating the Company, Too.
Talent strategy is not something leadership does to employees.
Your employees are making their own evaluations:
Am I growing here?
Is my work recognized?
Do I trust the leadership?
Am I being compensated fairly?
Can I picture myself working here a year from now?
How we handle performance reviews, development, compensation, promotions, and difficult conversations says a lot about what the company truly values. Your business goals may live in a strategic plan. But your employees experience that strategy through their managers, their workloads, their opportunities, and the decisions leadership makes every day.
The Plan and the People Must Align.
You do not need to have every talent decision finalized before setting a business goal. But you do need to ask whether the people strategy supports the plan.
Where is the business going?
Who will help take it there?
Who needs to be retained, developed, or supported?
What capabilities are missing?
And what needs to begin now?
Business strategy drives talent strategy. And the right talent strategy will ultimately determine whether the business plan becomes reality.