Organisations all over the world invest plenty of resources, money and time in Talent
Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These
generally are highly
capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are
talking about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation hold them motivated for very long?
Visualize a goldfish in a tank full of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on a 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 got to work in an environment that doesn't 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 supervisor who is low on
general intelligence. The manager would likely take more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see
this extra time as waste and incapability of her manager. The hipot will not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with
the manager or not look forward to
learning from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
Everybody knows that adults would not like to be told. A hipot would hate for
being directed repeatedly, plus they wish to be challenged cognitively. They might prefer guidance only after trying out things on
their own. An environment where the organisation and the managers are less tolerant towards
learning through experiments and failures do 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 popular enough reason to repel the
talent pool from your organisation. All it takes in such a situation is usually to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot might find doing work in such an environment insulting. Hipots intend
to grow in accordance to 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 check 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 get it from the market? These
are two
different things. If by chance your organisation is attracting talent, you'll always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the
market condition is. If you are buying talent from the market, you may consider the following
thoughts:
• Increased
wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated for very long
• A Deputy
Assistant VP grade will not likely mean much for a longer duration
• If there's a mismatch between expectations and reality, the hipot may regress
in performance after joining your organisation
• Recruiting
hipots can result in interpersonal challenges as well as an increased amount of employee churn
Some pointers
to
help in making informed decisions about attracting, recruiting, and retaining
the talent pool:
• Define the DNA
of hipots for your organisation
• Define the
strategy to recruit hipots. You'll have to ensure they work with managers who can provide them with the right environment
• Conduct surveys
to see if your organisation's culture is
conducive for nurturing the talent pool. In case
there are shortcomings, including organisational culture and practices,
address them through a robust learning architecture
• Make leaders
accountable 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 grow
• Make the
promotion criteria objective and transparent
• It is definitely ok to
not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision need to be based on talent pool bench-marking
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