Organisations around the world invest a
whole lot of resources, time and money in Talent
Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These
generally are highly
capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we're
dealing with. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation keep them motivated lastingly?
Imagine
a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe
polish alongside fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? This is simply how hipots will
feel when they have to work in an environment that doesn't suit their culture, aspirations, and capabilities. They
may feel suffocated and what follows next is the hipot going
in search of fresh air.
CAPABILITY
MISMATCH:
Consider a situation where your hipot has to
report to a supervisor who is low on
general intelligence. The manager would likely spend
more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see
this extra 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 don't wish to be told. A hipot would hate being directed always, they usually want to be challenged cognitively. They'd prefer guidance only after trying out things on
their own. An environment where the organisation or maybe the managers are less tolerant towards
learning through experiments and failures will not support nurturing a talent pool. ‘Telling
approach' is considered one indicator of an
organisation that lacks a high-performance culture.
ASPIRATION
MISMATCH:
Tenure-based
promotion is a popular enough a way to repel the
talent pool farther from organisation. What
is needed in such a situation usually is to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot can find being
employed in such an environment insulting. Hipots anticipate 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 try to find 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. But if your organisation is attracting talent, you'll always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the
market condition is. Should you be buying talent from the market, you may consider the following
thoughts:
• Increased
salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated lastingly
• A Deputy
Assistant VP grade will
likely not 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 may cause interpersonal challenges together with increased amount of employee churn
Some pointers
that can 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 make sure that they work with managers who can provide the 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 in 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
absolutely ok to
not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision must
be based on talent pool bench-marking
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