What is Talent Mapping?

Talent mapping is the process of assessing and understanding the skills, potential, and performance of your people. It goes beyond evaluating current performance - it helps organisations anticipate future needs, plan for growth, and build resilience by ensuring the right people are in the right roles at the right time.

By identifying high performers, future leaders, and development opportunities, talent mapping creates a clear picture of organisational strengths and gaps. This allows businesses to build targeted development plans, implement coaching strategies, address underperformance, and design succession pathways that align with long-term goals.

At JourneyHR, we use a structured, data-driven process that places each employee on a 9-box grid based on performance and potential. This gives leadership teams a clear, visual view of their people and creates a foundation for objective decisions around promotions, pay increases, learning and development, and succession planning.

Case Study

Our client, an SME in the creative industry with a team of 60 employees, engaged JourneyHR to undertake a talent mapping exercise. The leadership team had growth plans but lacked a structured view of where their talent sat, how it was being nurtured, and what the organisation would need to look like in 12 months’ time to deliver on its objectives.

Implementation

We began by working closely with the leadership team to agree the assessment criteria – ensuring the process aligned with company strategy, future skills needed for now and the future, upcoming organisational developments, and the data they most wanted to extract. Using a structured framework of performance and potential questions (scored on a 5-point scale), we assessed each employee and mapped them into a 9-box grid.

As part of the process, every team member received feedback, ensuring transparency and clarity on strengths and areas for development. Alongside this, we worked with leaders to highlight their top talent, identifying where targeted coaching or mentoring could accelerate growth and prepare individuals for future leadership roles

Each employee’s results were analysed and presented back to the leadership team. Alongside the overall talent map, we provided detailed insights for every individual, highlighting high performers, potential successors, and those at risk of underperforming or exiting.

For underperforming individuals, we helped managers design tailored action plans to support improvement, while also recognising where capability gaps might require difficult decisions.

Alongside the mapping exercise, our review sparked a broader conversation about pay bands and organisational structure. We highlighted that the company’s reward framework needed modernisation - moving away from promotions being the only lever for pay increases, towards a system that recognised and rewarded contribution within role.

Finally, from a succession perspective, we worked with the leadership team to model what the structure looked like today, what gaps might appear as the business scaled, and how to prepare for changes in the next 12 months. This gave the client a clear view of both immediate and future needs.

Outcomes

• Development plans created for individuals at all levels

• Coaching and mentoring identified for top talent to accelerate growth

• Feedback shared with every team member, building transparency and engagement

• Underperformers identified and supported with clear action plans

• Pay bands and progression frameworks reviewed to better reward within role

• Succession planning mapped out, giving leadership visibility of critical roles, flight risks, and future gaps