A talent management consultant is hired to do, once, what a company does not yet know how to do for itself: design the review, calibrate the first grid, build the first succession plan, or tell the owner which of the sixty people to worry about. For a small team the engagement is usually short and the question at the end of it is what stays behind. This page is written for the HR lead or owner deciding whether to hire one: what a consultant actually does, what to hand over and what to keep, what to ask for at the end, and the part of the job that is arithmetic rather than judgement. The free 9-box grid worksheet on this site counts the placements a consultant helps you make, with no account and no rating rule asserted.
What a consultant does that a small team cannot yet do
Three things, in most engagements. They design the rating scale and the review process, which is judgement about the company rather than arithmetic. They run or facilitate the first calibration, where forty managers' ratings become one grid and the arguments about names get settled. And they build the first succession plan: which roles are critical, who is slated, how ready each is. The CIPD's talent management factsheet, cited below, sets out the same three as the core of the discipline. What a consultant does not need to do is count the grid or work the bench, because those are the worksheet's job.
What to hand over, and what to keep in-house
Hand over the design and the first run: the scale, the process, the facilitation of the first calibration. Keep the record: the placements per cycle, the slates and the readiness dates, and the arithmetic that turns them into bench strength and exposure. An engagement that leaves the record inside the consultant's slide deck has to be bought again next year. Ask, at the start, for the plan and the grid to be handed back as data rather than as a presentation, and put them where the next review can read them.
What to ask for at the end of the engagement
Four things: the rating scale written down, the calibration process as a runbook the HR lead can repeat, the succession plan as a list of roles and slates with readiness dated, and the first grid's counts. The counts are the test of whether the engagement produced a review or a workshop: sixty-four people placed should read as six stars, a pool of thirteen, a core of twenty and nine to plan for, and if the consultant cannot say so the placements were never finished.
When the job is a consultant's and when it is a worksheet's
The first design is a consultant's job, or a good HR lead's with time. The first calibration usually benefits from a facilitator who is nobody's manager. Everything after that is repetition: the grid counted, the bench worked, the leavers priced, the slates kept, and repetition is what software is for. The worksheets on this site do the counting free; Ninebix Pro keeps the record between cycles so the consultant is not hired to rebuild it.
Questions people ask about talent management consultant
What does a talent management consultant do?
Designs the review process and the rating scale, facilitates the first calibration, and builds the first succession plan. The counting of the grid and the working of the bench are arithmetic the worksheets on this site do; the design and the facilitation are the consultant's judgement.
How long does a talent management engagement take?
For a small team, usually one review cycle: the design, the first calibration and the first plan. What matters is what is handed back at the end, and the answer should be the scale, the process, the plan and the grid's counts as data the next cycle can reuse.
Can software replace a talent management consultant?
It replaces the repetition, not the first design. The worksheets count the grid, work the bench and price the leavers free; Ninebix Pro keeps the placements, slates and readiness between cycles. Designing the scale and facilitating the first calibration remain a person's job.