Organisations throughout the world invest a large amount 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
discussing. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation keep them motivated all the
way?
Visualize a goldfish inside a tank full of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe
polish besides fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? That's exactly how hipots will
feel if they've 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:
Consider a situation where your hipot has to
report to a manager who's 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 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 at all
times, and they like to be challenged cognitively. Usually they would prefer guidance only after trying out things on
their own. An environment where the organisation as well as 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 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 could find doing work in such an environment insulting. Hipots intend
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 purchase it from the market? You will see these are two
different things. If your organisation is attracting talent, you may 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 very long
• A Deputy
Assistant VP grade will not likely 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 with
an 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 your organisation
• Define the
strategy to recruit hipots. You might have to make
certain that they work with managers who can present 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. Employees should enter, get promoted, and exit the organisation at the correct 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 to
not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision should be based on talent pool bench-marking
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