What drives the leadership pipeline in the best places to work? Hewitt Associates, one of the world’s leading HR consulting frms, has extensively researched this question over the years through its ‘Best Employers’ and ‘Top Companies for Leaders’ studies. The results, as well as our deep understanding of what drives employee engagement, has thrown up some interesting insights.

From an employer perspective, two key priorities for organisations today are: i) How can we accelerate the development of high-potential leaders to enable them to manage businesses early on? ii) ‘How can we build a robust leadership pipeline that ensures business continuity and smooth transitions as incumbent leaders move into new roles within the organisation or choose to exit the organisation?

For the majority of employees, the single biggest engagement driver is the career opportunities available to them. Employee aspirations are constantly on the rise, and most organisations fnd it challenging to keep up with and manage these aspirations.

Successful organisations look at both these perspectives and proactively manage them. They understand that there is a great opportunity here – with high-potential employees looking for development and advancement opportunities early on, complementing their own need for leaders who can take on the reins of business in a short span of time.

Career management and succession planning need to go hand in hand. As organisations defne growth paths and facilitate the movement of employees across roles, they also need robust succession planning for flling up the resulting vacancies.

Hewitt Best Employers (hereafter referred to as The Best as opposed to employers that fall outside this bracket called The Rest) are able to successfully manage their employee aspirations while at the same time ensure business continuity and success. Here are some insights from the Hewitt Best Employers India Study 2009:

CEOs at The Best take personal ownership of Leadership and Talent Development– they not only recognise the leadership quality as the single biggest driver of organisational success, but also own the agenda of grooming leaders from within the organisation.

Leaders are primarily groomed from within the organisation - 73 percent of leadership positions at The Best are flled internally compared to 53 percent at The Rest. These organisations invest in assessing the  potential of employees through regular talent reviews, and provide specifc development interventions to the high potentials who are groomed to take on larger roles.

A ready talent pipeline is ensured through a formal succession planning process - 96 percent of The Best have a formal defned succession planning process as compared to only 64 percent of The Rest. Critical roles would have at least potential successors identifed.

Leadership development is primarily though developmental and rotational assignments at The Best as against classroom-based training programs at The Rest. Best Employers create “accelerated” development plans for high potentials and successor candidates that provide unique career opportunities and exposure to other leaders. These include cross business “stretch” assignments to help prepare high potentials and use action learning as a key development vehicle and a way to foster company innovation. They also enlist current leaders in developing the next generation (i.e. “leaders building leaders”)

The Best establish a variety of metrics to hold leaders accountable for developing future leaders. They track the actions that leaders take to develop others using individual Leader Scorecards. Two-to-three years after the role has been flled with a chosen successor, organisations measure effectiveness of the successor selection process and determine whether their assessment of that candidate’s capabilities was correct.

As with any other system, the intended results are shaped by fawless execution. Critical success factors for building a strong leadership pipeline include the extent to which organisations engage with employees to understand their career aspirations, the development of the capability in managers to accurately assess employee potential, and an open and transparent communication across the organisation on the rationale for career movements.

—Neisha Lobo is Head – Leadership Development, India and Middle East, Hewitt Associates. The data quoted above is from the Hewitt Best Employers in India 2009 study.

This is the largest employee and people practice research conducted in India with over 230 Companies participating in the 2009 study.