HR (HRM)
Succession and the 9-box
Mark the roles you cannot afford to leave empty, keep a ranked list of people who could step into each one, and hold talent review meetings that agree on fair ratings and place everyone on the 9-box.
Contents: Who can use it · Critical roles · Successors · Talent reviews · Calibration · Potential and the 9-box · Closing a review · The 9-box page · Privacy · FAQ
Who can use it
Everything is on every plan. Talent data is kept to a small group: it needs its own permissions on the Roles screen, and nobody gets them by accident.
| Permission group | Lets you |
|---|---|
| Succession (List, Create, Update, Delete) | See and change critical roles and their successors |
| Calibration (List, Create, Update, Close, Delete) | Run talent review meetings |
| 9-box (List, Export) | See the 9-box; Export downloads it as a file |
| View / Edit Talent Ratings (employee field permissions) | See talent changes in an employee's field history |
When 9bx is updated, these permissions are given only to the roles that may already close a review cycle. Managers and employees never see this data. Employees are not told that they are a successor or where they sit on the 9-box.
Where: HR → Talent (tabs Succession, Talent reviews, 9-box).
Critical roles
A critical role is a seat whose loss would hurt: a position from your position list, or a designation if you do not use positions.
- Open Succession and click Add critical role.
- Pick the Position (or the Designation). The title is filled in for you; change it if you like.
- Set Risk of loss (how likely the person in it is to leave: Low, Medium, High) and Impact (how much it would hurt).
- Click Save.
Each role shows who holds it now (the active people in that position or designation) and its Bench strength:
| Bench strength | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Covered | At least one successor is ready now |
| At risk | There are successors, but none is ready now |
| No successor | Nobody is named yet |
The list puts high-risk roles first. Filter by risk, bench strength or department to find the gaps. The summary at the top counts roles by bench strength and risk.
A position or designation can be marked as critical only once.
Successors
Open a role and click Add successor:
- Pick the Employee. The person who already holds the role cannot be added.
- Choose the Readiness: Ready now, Ready in 1-2 years or Ready in 3+ years.
- Optionally link their Development plan (one of their development goals from Goals and development) and add notes.
Successors are listed in rank order; change Rank to reorder them. Each successor also shows their latest 9-box placement, so you can see at a glance whether your backup is a strong performer.
An employee's Talent profile lists every role they are a successor for and their latest 9-box box.
Talent reviews
A talent review is a meeting where HR and leaders look at a group of people together, agree on fair ratings and rate potential.
- Open Talent reviews and click New talent review.
- Enter a Name and the Meeting date.
- Pick the Review cycle whose ratings you will discuss. Everyone whose review the manager has handed in is added with their rating. Without a cycle, the active people of the chosen departments and branches are added without a rating, and you rate them in the meeting.
- Optionally limit it to some Departments or Branches.
- Click Save.
If more reviews are handed in later, click Refresh people to add them. People you have not calibrated yet also get their latest review rating.
Each person's potential starts from the last talent review they were in, so you only change what moved.
Calibration
The board shows how many people sit on each step of the rating scale, before and after your changes, next to a Target distribution.
- The default target is a bell curve: on a 5-point scale 10%, 20%, 40%, 20% and 10%. Change it under Edit (the shares must add up to 100%), or clear it to calibrate without a target.
- For each person, enter a Calibrated rating where the group agrees the review rating was too high or too low. Clear it to go back to the review's rating.
- The Difference column shows how many people are above or below the target on each step.
You can change several people at once by selecting them.
Potential and the 9-box
Rate each person's Potential: Low, Medium or High. The 9-box puts performance (the calibrated rating, or the review's rating) across and potential up:
| Potential \ Performance | Low | Medium | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | Rough diamond | Future star | Star |
| Medium | Inconsistent player | Core player | High performer |
| Low | Talent risk | Effective | Trusted professional |
Performance is read from the rating scale in thirds: on a 1-5 scale, up to 2.33 is low, up to 3.67 is medium and above that is high. Any scale works the same way. People without a rating or without potential are counted as Not placed.
Closing a talent review
When the meeting is done, click Close.
- If your workspace has an approval flow for Talent review calibration, the review waits for approval and can no longer be changed. Approvers see the name of the review and how many ratings changed, never anyone's rating. If it is rejected, it opens again for changes.
- On close, every calibrated rating is written to the person's performance review, with the matching rating label, if the review has not been released to the employee yet. Reviews already released keep their rating. The review shows how many ratings were applied.
A closed talent review is read only. It becomes the source of each person's standing 9-box placement.
The 9-box page
9-box shows everyone's placement from the most recent closed talent review they were in. Pick a talent review to see that meeting's placements instead (open ones update live). Filter by department. Click a box to list the people in it.
Export downloads the placements as a spreadsheet file. It needs the 9-box Export permission.
Privacy
- Every time someone opens succession plans, a talent review or the 9-box, and every export, is recorded in the Audit log (category talent).
- Changes to readiness, calibrated ratings and potential appear in the employee's field history, hidden from anyone without View Talent Ratings.
- You only see people in the branches you have access to.
- An employee's personal data export includes the roles they are a successor for and their talent review results (not the reviewers' notes). Erasing an employee's personal data removes both.
Troubleshooting and FAQ
Nobody was added to my talent review. The cycle has no reviews handed in by managers yet, or none in the departments and branches you chose. Click Refresh people after managers hand in their reviews.
A calibrated rating did not reach the review. The review had already been released to the employee before the talent review closed. Released reviews keep their rating.
I cannot change a talent review. It is closed or waiting for approval.
The 9-box page is empty. It shows closed talent reviews only. Close one, or pick an open talent review at the top.