Organisations throughout the world invest lots of resources, money and time in Talent
Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These would highly
capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are
discussing about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation keep them motivated all the
way?
Imagine
a goldfish inside a tank full of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on any heavy traffic road. Shoe
polish adjacent to fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? This is precisely how hipots will
feel when they have to work in an environment that does
not 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:
Take into consideration a situation where your hipot has to
report to a supervisor who’s low on
general intelligence. The manager would most likely take 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
learning from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
Everybody knows that adults don’t wish to be told. A hipot would hate to be directed incessantly, they usually love to be challenged cognitively. They
would 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 cannot 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 good enough a way to repel the
talent pool from your organisation. Precisely what it takes in such a situation is usually to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot will
find operating 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 look 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 purchase it from the market? You will see these are two
different things. But if your organisation is attracting talent, you may 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
wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated for too 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 cause interpersonal challenges as well as an increased amount of employee churn
Some pointers
that will 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 provide 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
answerable 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 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 certainly ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision must
be based on talent pool bench-marking