Organisations across
the globe invest a lot of resources, money and time in Talent
Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These would highly
capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we're
handling. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation keep them motivated for long?
Visualize a goldfish inside a tank full of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on any high-traffic road. Shoe
polish besides fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? This is simply how hipots will
feel if they've to work in an environment that does
not suit their culture, aspirations, and capabilities. They are going to feel suffocated and what follows next is the hipot going
in search of fresh air.
CAPABILITY
MISMATCH:
Take into consideration a situation where your hipot has to
report to a manager who is low on
general intelligence. The manager would most likely spend
more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see
this additional time as waste and incapability of
the manager. The hipot might not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with
the manager or not really look forward to
gaining knowledge from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
Everyone knows that adults often choose not to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed always, and they like to be challenged cognitively. They'd prefer guidance only after trying out things on
their own. An environment where the organisation or perhaps
the managers are less tolerant towards
learning through experiments and failures will not support nurturing a talent pool. ‘Telling
approach' is one indicator of an
organisation that lacks a high-performance culture.
ASPIRATION
MISMATCH:
Tenure-based
promotion is a good enough a way to repel the
talent pool from your organisation. All it takes in such a situation would be to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot might find doing work in such an environment insulting. Hipots expect to grow based on performance,
effort and demonstrated capability.
Organisations
can't expect hipots to wait patiently for their turn of promotion. The irony is
that the organisations don't look for their patience while recruiting them. The
talent management strategy must be in line with the intent to nurture and
retain the talent pool.
“At companies with
very effective talent management, respondents are six times more likely than
those with very ineffective talent management to report higher 'Total Returns
to Shareholders' than competitors.”
“Only 5 per cent
of respondents say their organizations' talent management has been very
effective at improving company performance”.
Source -
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/winning-with-your-talent-management-strategy
ATTRACTING VS
BUYING TALENT:
Does your organisation
attracts talent or purchase it from the market? You will see these are two
different things. Should
your organisation is attracting talent, you may always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the
market condition is. If you're buying talent from the market, you may consider the following
thoughts:
• Increased
salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated permanently
• A Deputy
Assistant VP grade will
likely not mean much for a longer duration
• If there is
a mismatch between expectations and reality, the hipot may regress
in performance after joining your organisation
• Recruiting
hipots may lead to interpersonal challenges along with an increasing amount
of employee churn
Some pointers
that will help in making informed decisions about attracting, recruiting, and retaining
the talent pool:
• Define the DNA
of hipots for the organisation
• Define the
strategy to recruit hipots. You might have to ensure they work with managers who can provide them the right environment
• Conduct surveys
to check if your organisation's culture is
conducive for nurturing the talent pool. Should there be shortcomings, including organisational culture and practices,
address them through a robust learning architecture
• Make leaders
answerable for talent management and review them regularly
• Define a career
path for all roles within the organisation. The
employee should enter, get promoted, and exit the organisation at the right
time
• Make people
development a default competency for managers and leaders. Organisations should
give talent management competency enough weightage for making their promotions
decisions
• Provide equal
opportunity for all employees to learn and develop
• Make the
promotion criteria objective and transparent
• It is definitely ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision need to be based on talent pool bench-marking
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