CAHRS Talent Development Working Group Series | Session 2: Succession Planning & Leadership Development

Download the Working Group Notes

Companies today face unprecedented challenges in developing their talent. New technologies (e.g., generative AI) and work models (e.g., hybrid/remote), among other emerging trends, are quickly changing the capabilities that employees need to be successful and, at the same time, are shortening the half-life of the capabilities they already possess. To address these challenges, companies are reconceptualizing work based on skills rather than jobs. They are revamping their succession planning approaches to identify high potential talent earlier and are striving to build leadership capability among all employees, not just senior executives. And they are investing in knowledge management as a way to capture the tacit knowledge possessed by retiring experts and to overcome the barriers to information sharing created by increasingly distributed work arrangements.

This CAHRS working group series, led by William J. Conaty Professor of Strategic Human Resource Management and CAHRS Academic Director Brad Bell, will examine these emerging trends surrounding talent development, which was again one of the highest priority items on the minds of HR leaders heading into 2024.

In this second session, we will examine how companies are evolving succession planning and leadership development to build bench strength. In particular, we will explore how companies are equipping leaders to recruit, motivate, and retain employees in hybrid and remote environments, how companies are revising their leadership development approaches given the growing reticence of employees to relocate for developmental assignments, and the implications of striving to develop leadership capability among employees at all levels and in all roles.

Our virtual working groups are kept small (20-25 participants) to allow for rich discussion and best practice sharing. Given the limited size of each session, we ask that you only register for a session if you will be able to attend for the duration. Prior to the session, attendees should give some thought to topic that will be discussed, so they are prepared to share with the group. We also strongly prefer that participants be on camera during the session to allow for more engaging interaction. If for some reason after you sign up for the working group, something comes up last minute, it would be great to get even a last-minute e-mail advising us that you cannot attend as we sometimes have a waiting list.