Strengthening Succession Planning and Talent Identification
Client: A global luxury automotive brand with a strong South African presence
Industry: Automotive
Focus: Talent Assessment; Succession Planning; Talent Identification; Talent Advisory; Mobility Planning; 360° Feedback
What They Were Up Against
The client had made significant investments in leadership development as part of building a sustainable pipeline of future leaders. Their initial programme focused on executives and senior leaders and was supported by a robust battery of psychometric assessments.
Yellow Seed partnered with the business to design the leadership competency frameworks and create the customised assessments that underpinned the programme. We also built and implemented the entire 360° feedback process, giving leaders access to rich, multi-perspective insights into their impact. Over time, the programme was expanded to include middle managers, broadening its reach.
Building on this foundation, the client introduced an internal talent mapping process that integrated psychometric results with 180° and 360° feedback data, creating a rounded view of leadership potential across the organisation.
Several years later, in preparation for upcoming Talent Boards, the organisation recognised the need to refresh the process. They sought to generate updated, objective data on their current leadership landscape and to track progress over the previous year. Without this refreshed evidence base, succession conversations risked becoming overly subjective, limiting the quality of leadership and mobility decisions.
Where We Chose to Focus
Our work began with a new round of online assessments, including supervised CPP sessions to ensure fairness and reliability.
We then integrated multiple data points – assessment results, performance data, and succession inputs – into a standardised talent database. This created a single, reliable source of truth for all talent conversations.
From this foundation, Yellow Seed prepared a comprehensive set of outputs, including:
A Talent Board presentation pack with calibrated talent matrices and potential data
Individual talent profiles summarising assessment and succession insights
Collated employee summaries to support workforce-level analysis
To ensure data translated into meaningful action, Yellow Seed consultants conducted individual feedback sessions with every participant and supported them in drafting personalised development plans (PDPs).
During this process, it became clear that some of the client’s initial challenges were not caused by bias, but by the lack of consistent, standardised data. Once objective data were in place, talent conversations shifted from speculation to evidence.
How We Partnered for Impact
Yellow Seed anchored its work in our proven talent assessment methodology, adapted to the client’s unique context.
We partnered closely with HR and L&D teams to ensure alignment with existing processes.
Tools included psychometric assessments, 180°/360° feedback surveys, Microsoft-integrated databases, and structured feedback sessions.
We engaged line managers and executives throughout, securing buy-in and ensuring ownership of outputs.
Results were presented in a business-ready format, designed to integrate seamlessly into Talent Boards and succession conversations.
By tailoring the process to the client’s frameworks and language, we ensured the outputs were both credible and practically usable.
What Shifted
The client successfully transitioned from relying primarily on self-assessments to using a multi-source, evidence-based approach to talent identification.
Leaders gained a more holistic view of readiness and potential, integrating psychometrics, 180° feedback, and competency frameworks.
Over a three-year period, the process was strengthened further by aligning local practices with global frameworks, recalibrating cut-off scores, and ensuring comparability across regions.
Employees benefited from clearer career pathways through personalised feedback and tailored PDPs.
The South African HR team was recognised globally as the most mature in their talent practices because of the process that was followed
Most importantly, talent identification was reframed as an ongoing developmental journey rather than a once-off compliance activity.
Success Enablers
Several factors enabled the success of the project:
- Integration of multiple data sources improved credibility and richness of insights.
- The 9-box grid was applied with developmental intent, not as a labelling tool, with leaders guided on its proper use.
- Benchmarking cut-off scores against business norms ensured fairness and consistency.
- Personalised feedback and PDPs built participant trust, encouraging commitment to development actions.
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