Talent planning is deciding, ahead of time, what people your business will need and how you will get them: by developing the people you have, hiring new ones, or both. Done well, it means you are not scrambling to fill a gap after someone resigns or a new contract lands.
It matters more now because the skills a role needs keep shifting. In the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, employers expect 39% of workers’ core skills to change by 2030. A plan built only on job titles and CVs goes out of date quickly.
What a talent plan covers
- Business goals. Where the company is heading over the next one to three years, and what that means for headcount and skills.
- Current capability. The skills your people have today, including soft skills such as decision making, communication and resilience, not just qualifications.
- Gaps and risks. Roles that are hard to fill, people who would be hard to replace, and skills you will need but don’t have yet.
- Actions. Who to develop, who to promote, what to hire for, and when.
7 talent planning best practices
1. Start from business goals, not vacancies
Most hiring is reactive: someone leaves and a job ad goes out. Start instead from what the business is trying to do. If you plan to enter a new market, launch a product line or change how people work, ask which roles and skills that will need, and by when. That gives the plan a purpose beyond the next vacancy.
2. Map the skills you already have, soft skills included
You probably know who holds which certifications. Fewer organisations know who stays calm under pressure, who brings a team together or who makes good decisions with incomplete information, yet these are often what separates strong performance from average.
Measure them rather than guessing. In our own research, the average gap between a person’s strongest and weakest soft skill is 34 percentage points: almost everyone is strong in some areas and weaker in others. A skills map shows those profiles across a team, so you can see where you are covered and where you are thin. The Soft Skills Paradox has the full findings.
3. Find out what your high performers have in common
Identify the people who consistently do well in each critical role and look at what they share. Often it isn’t years of experience or a particular degree but a mix of skills: how they deal with customers, how they prioritise, how they react when things go wrong. That profile becomes your benchmark for internal moves and new hires alike.
4. Look inside before you hire
Hiring takes longer and carries more risk than developing someone who already knows your business. Before opening a role externally, check whether someone in the team has the right skills profile and could step up with training or mentoring. Visible career paths also give good people a reason to stay.
5. Protect the roles you can’t afford to lose
Some people and roles carry more risk than others. Identify them, and make sure those people get regular feedback, development and fair, competitive pay. Use exit interviews to learn why people leave, and act on the patterns you see.
6. Build a pipeline before you need it
Even with good retention, people leave. Keep a pool of strong candidates you have already met: applicants who narrowly missed out, referrals, and former employees who left on good terms. When a role opens, you start with people you already know something about instead of starting from zero.
7. Make it a leadership job, and review it regularly
Talent planning shouldn’t sit with HR alone. Business leaders know where the company is heading; HR knows the people and the market. Agree the plan together and review it at least every quarter, because goals and people both change.
Where assessment fits
A talent plan is only as good as the information behind it. Soft-skills assessments give you comparable data on candidates and current employees, so you can map strengths across a team, benchmark your high performers and spot gaps early. See how Westnet Distribution used Owiwi for workforce planning.
Owiwi assesses soft skills through workplace scenarios that people play through, and gives you reports to compare them side by side. Try Owiwi for free: 5 assessments, 21 days, no credit card required.
An earlier version of this article was a guest post by Samawat Shakil, Content Manager at GreenThumbs. Updated by the Owiwi team in October 2026.
