Build and Implement a 9-Box Talent Grid to Assess Employee Talent

If you want to successfully develop talent, youve got to start by effectively evaluating it.
Talent management leaders are responsible for heading up the success of programs such as succession planning,
high potential identification, leadership development, and overall employee development. Without a solid internal
assessment of talent levels, talent management leaders risk the failures of these programs, as talent assessment
directly feeds into their development.
The classification of talent using the 9-Box Grid will provide a clearer picture of talent distribution, effectively
improving targeted development success rates, and decreasing disengagement and turnover, which ultimately
enhances the organizations bottom line.
According to the 2014 McLean & Company HR Trends and Priorities Survey, only 27% of respondents agreed or
strongly agreed that internal talent assessment was effective. However, business respondents ranked it as the
sixth-most-important trend for the year out of 21 HR areas. There is a disconnect between the importance and
effectiveness that can be reconciled by using the 9-Box Talent Grid.
The McLean & Company 9-Box Talent Grid
Performance is fairly straightforward to assess, but potential is less concrete more trickier to measure without large
amounts of bias. Assess performance and potential by using observable criteria so you can reduce the biases
involved and consistently evaluate employees to better level-set their placement across the organization.
To ensure your talent review meeting goes smoothly, review each managers assessments prior to the talent
meeting. This will allow you to get a feel for what to expect during the meeting, help you begin the calibration
process early, and advise managers if their employee placements are way off the mark, saving them time and
embarrassment.
Whether you tell an employee that they are high potential or not is dependent on the type of culture your
organization has.
Only open, collaborative cultures will be ready for this transparency. The quality of the development discussions
your managers have with their employees is what is really important. These conversations and development plans
will send the right signals to employees.
Review research and project metrics to make the case for building a 9-Box Talent Grid process into the
organization, to gain project approval.
Understand how the 9-Box Talent Grid is constructed and what each box in the grid means.
Align the use of the Grid to assess employee talent with the unique needs of your organization by addressing the
target audience, talent grid profile definitions, and a tool to help managers assess their employees.
Get the Grid ready for use by communicating with stakeholders and training managers, and put it into action using
guidelines for a talent review and calibrating meeting.
Begin the process of funneling results from the Grid placements into talent programs, development discussions,
and action planning with employees.
Check in on the process after implementation by gathering feedback and updating metrics to continually improve