Case Study: Talent Management, Development of a pipeline model

Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust has successfully developed and implemented a Talent Management pipeline model. This case study explores the steps they took to implement this and the outcomes.

The objective

After successfully developing and deploying our Talent Management (TM) Strategy, we needed a way of capturing the output from the talent conversations with each member of staff within the finance and procurement departments. Another consideration was that it would be useful if whatever we developed could also obtain some high-level statistics not only for the department, but additional detail for each team within the Finance and Procurement department.

We were also conscious of the fact that the model we developed should help to identify risks within the structure of our department based on the wishes of team members to progress into more senior roles, so we needed the model to consider succession planning as a priority.

Development of our TM Pipeline Model

We searched online to see what other organisations had done in terms of developing a TM Pipeline model, and we saw that Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland ICB had developed a comprehensive spreadsheet that captured a lot of the detail that we were also looking to obtain from the TM conversations with our staff. We gratefully used their model as a starting point for developing our own pipeline model.

Pipeline model template – TGH -Talent pipeline Template

General Statistics:

By ensuring that we included details such as headcount, whether staff had a desire to change roles, estimated timeframes for changing roles and (if applicable) which area of finance they would like to move into, we would be able to map out what this would mean for our department and collect some high level statistics to help highlight any potential risks that the Senior Team would need to be aware of.

An example of the output we have managed to glean from doing this is provided below:

We have also produced the same output for each area within our department, example below:

In our case, we have the above detail for the Financial Management, Procurement and Senior Teams. This information has been helpful to highlight, at a glance, the key themes from the detail of the pipeline model so that the Senior Team can have informed conversations about potential risk areas based on the individual conversations that have been held with each member of the department.

Risk Assessment:

By ensuring that the TM conversations held with staff included questions asking them if they have any desires to change roles (either through potential promotion, sideways moves etc.) and by obtaining rough estimation of timescales associated with this, we were able to use this information to create a ‘risk map’ by band, and what the impact of this might be on the existing structure within the department (assuming those events happened in line with the estimated timescales).

This provides helpful information to enable more effective succession planning, as well as highlighting where there might be potential gaps within the team structure. We have repeated this level of detail for each section of our department and have this information for Caretaker – Apply (where staff could undertake those roles on a permanent basis) and Caretaker – Not Substantively (where staff could undertake those roles on a temporary basis):

Training:

We decided to use the TM Pipeline spreadsheet as a way of capturing any training needs/desires by staff which have chosen to display as a wordle. We ensured that when staff have their TM conversations, that training is discussed as this may form an important part of enabling staff to achieve their goals. This information is recorded for each member of staff and held in a separate column on the main spreadsheet – a wordle is then used to summarise this information.

Impact and Outcomes

The TM pipeline model is something that is now periodically monitored by the Senior Team and is regularly refreshed to ensure that it shows the latest picture based on the output from, not only TM conversations but appraisals and 1-1 conversations between line managers and staff. Some of the key benefits we see by running this model are:

Could be used as a blueprint for other organisations to use/further develop – the output of which could be used by DoFs/CFOs to discuss Talent Management and succession planning on a regional or even national basis.

• Provides clear foresight on staff movement, and therefore allows time for pre-emptive planning
• Helps to identify when and where within the team there might be potential staffing pressures
• Helps to identify common training needs of staff so that an appropriate training plan can be developed to meet these needs

Learn more about The Talent Management Strategy and process here