Successfully Managing Success Management

The EAT has recently overturned an ET decision that a senior NHS manager had not been discriminated against on the grounds of age when she failed to secure two promotions because she was not a member of the respondent NHS trust's 'talent pool'.

Many trusts see it as a key responsibility to promote talented managers and to retain successful ones. The trust in this case had a 'talent pool' to meet this objective, which it operated as 'a diversion' from Agenda for Change.

• There were three ways into the 'talent pool'. A score of 'exceeds expectations' in appraisal, a successful challenge to an appraisal if you initially scored below that, or successful self-nomination where a member of staff could put their name forward twice a year.