Talent management consulting firms sell engagements: a leadership assessment, a succession planning programme, a performance management redesign, a workforce plan. Each is scoped, staffed and priced for a company with a people function and a budget line for it, and each produces a report the board reads. A small team searching for one is usually looking for the part of that offer it can afford, and this page is for the HR lead or owner working out which part that is: what the firms sell, the company size it fits, and what a sixty-person company buys instead. The guide to the best talent management software on this site sets out the software half of the answer with sourced prices, and the worksheets do the arithmetic free.
What the firms sell: four engagements
A leadership assessment places the top team on the grid using the firm's instruments and interviews and writes up each person. A succession programme names the critical roles, builds and tests the slates and sets development plans. A performance redesign replaces the rating scale, the cycle and the calibration. A workforce plan projects headcount and skills against the business plan. The SHRM succession toolkit and the CIPD talent factsheet, cited below, describe what each involves. Every one is a project with a start and an end; none is the record kept between cycles.
The company size each engagement fits
The assessment fits a leadership team of eight to twenty whose succession the board is asking about. The succession programme fits a company with enough critical roles that a firm's method saves time over a good HR lead's afternoon. The redesign fits a company whose review has failed visibly. The workforce plan fits a company growing or shrinking faster than its hiring can follow. A sixty-person company with one HR lead usually has one of these problems at most, and it is usually the succession plan.
What a small team buys instead
Two things, and they are cheaper than one firm engagement. An independent consultant for the design and the first calibration, who leaves the scale, the runbook and the plan behind as data. And software for the record and the arithmetic: the grid counted, the bench and the three-year exposure worked, the leavers priced, and the roles, slates and readiness kept between cycles. The worksheets on this site do the arithmetic free; Ninebix Pro is the record, at $10 a month for the whole team; the suite alternatives and their per-seat prices are set out in the software guide with sources.
When a firm is worth the fee even for a small company
When the board wants an outside view of the leadership team that no insider can give, when a merger makes two grids one, or when the owner is planning their own succession and needs the assessment to be somebody else's. Those are real and a firm does them well. Buy the engagement for that problem, ask for the plan back as data, and keep the record in-house so the next cycle does not need the firm.
Questions people ask about talent management consulting firms
What do talent management consulting firms do?
They sell scoped engagements: leadership assessments, succession programmes, performance redesigns and workforce plans, each staffed and priced for a company with a people function. None of them is the record kept between review cycles, which is what software is for.
Are talent management consulting firms worth it for a small business?
For a specific problem their scale fits, such as an outside assessment of the leadership team or an owner's own succession, yes. For the first review of a sixty-person team, an independent for the design and software for the record is the cheaper purchase and leaves more behind.
What should a small company keep after a consulting engagement?
The roles, slates and readiness as data, the rating scale, the calibration runbook and the grid's counts. Ninebix Pro keeps the record between cycles; the worksheets on this site count the grid and work the bench free.