Organisations across the
world invest plenty of resources, time and money in Talent
Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). You will see these are highly
capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we're
talking about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation keep them motivated for long?
Visualize a goldfish inside a tank with lots of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on a high-traffic road. Shoe
polish just beside fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? This is exactly how hipots will
feel they were to work in an environment that does
not suit their culture, aspirations, and capabilities. They will 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 additional time as waste and incapability of their manager. The hipot may 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 usually wouldn't want to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed incessantly, plus they wish to be challenged cognitively. They
would 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 will likely not support nurturing a talent pool. ‘Telling
approach' is definitely 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 from the organisation. What
is needed in such a situation is
to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot may find 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 pay
attention to 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. In case your organisation is attracting talent, you are sure to always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the
market condition is. In case you are buying talent from the market, you may consider the following
thoughts:
• Increased
wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated for long
• A Deputy
Assistant VP grade will 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 bring
about interpersonal challenges with
an increased amount of employee churn
Some pointers
which 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 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. 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 in 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 totally ok to
not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision must
be based on talent pool bench-marking
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