Talent Tectonics

CHAPTER 10Changing the Employee Experience

Technology and the 12 Talent Reports

A large insurance company had built a highly structured process to identify, evaluate, and develop leadership talent. Each year a series of steps were conducted to produce 12 detailed reports providing different views of the talent across the company. The reports were works of art from a design perspective, using colors and shapes to convey different relationships among the data. The reports were part of an extensive talent review process culminating in a day-long leadership board session discussing current and future leaders. So, it was no surprise when the HR leadership team reacted negatively to learning that a new HR technology system implemented by the IT department could not replicate the reports. An emergency session with the technology vendor was called to figure out how to retain these critical 12 talent reports.

“We need your system to duplicate these reports before the review process starts next month!”, the HR team stated. The vendor replied, “We cannot create these exact reports in such a short time frame without extensive and costly custom development.” The company's IT team then said, “We do not have a budget for this; surely there must be a workaround.” “No,” said the HR team. “The board expects to see these reports just as they are!” The vendor offered a suggestion, “We cannot create the exact reports but perhaps we can create something that still supports how the reports are used ...