Organisations around the world invest plenty 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
talking about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation place them motivated for long?
Visualize a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on a heavy traffic road. Shoe
polish close
to fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? That's precisely how hipots will
feel should 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:
Think
about it as a situation where your hipot has to
report to a supervisor who is low on
general intelligence. The manager would most probably take more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see
this extra time as waste and incapability of their manager. The hipot won't find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with
the manager or not look forward to
gaining knowledge from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
We all
know that adults often choose not to be told. A hipot would hate for
being directed constantly, plus they want to be challenged cognitively. Typically they would 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 likely 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 reason to repel the
talent pool from your organisation. Precisely what it takes in such an environment usually is to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot may find working in such an environment insulting. Hipots intend
to grow according 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 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 buy it from the market? You will see these are two
different things. If by chance your organisation is attracting talent, you certainly will always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the
market condition is. When
you are buying talent from the market, you may consider the following
thoughts:
• Increased
salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated for too long
• A Deputy
Assistant VP grade will 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 could lead to interpersonal challenges and an increased amount of employee churn
Some pointers
that can assist 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 may have to make
certain that they work with managers who can give
them the right environment
• Conduct surveys
to ascertain if your organisation's culture is
conducive for nurturing the talent pool. If 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. An 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
management consulting
