Talent risk assessment: How to successfully identify gaps in your workforce

Talent risk assessment is the process of identifying, evaluating and mitigating risks related to your workforce. The goal is to understand the potential negative impacts that common talent risks could have on your company’s performance and business continuity. By identifying your vulnerabilities and then proactively managing these risks, you can maintain a skilled workforce and protect business performance.

What are the biggest talent risks?

We’re talking about major risks that could impact everyday operations, business-critical functions or future business growth. These might include:

• Leadership shortages, or succession problems for leadership roles 
• Unexpected departure of key employees
• Retirement of key employees
• Shortages in core skills that are essential to current or future business needs
• External factors, like new technologies or shifts in the labour market

Identifying the risks to your business

There are many ways to conduct talent risk assessment, but good practices include:

• Review your business strategy to understand future talent needs. It’s vital your talent strategy is aligned with company objectives, so start by reviewing your wider business strategy and goals. From there, you can anticipate future demand for specific skills or roles. 
• Crunch the numbers. Talent risk assessment must be based on data, so analyse workforce metrics such as turnover rates, employee satisfaction and headcount. This will help you identify attrition patterns and find potential early warning signs that someone vital may be about to leave.
• Map workforce skills. Assess existing employee skills against the skills needed for future business strategies. This will highlight your most pressing skills mismatches or gaps. Always consider where employees can be redeployed and retrained to meet future needs. 
• Plan for succession. Develop succession plans for leadership and key positions that are critical to business continuity. Make sure you have a pipeline of talent and that you support internal career progression.
• Open up communication. Talk to HR, senior execs and line managers about talent risks and gaps. This gives you more diverse perspectives that complement what the data is telling you.

With technology advancing at such a rapid pace, the biggest skills gaps often centre around IT and technology, particularly AI and cybersecurity. As one of the leading AI and cybersecurity recruitment agencies, Roc Search can help you mitigate your biggest technology talent risks and plug essential skills gaps. Talk to our technology recruitment specialists today. We’ll help you find top AI talent and cybersecurity talent, whether it’s on a permanent, temporary or contract basis.