Organisations across
the globe invest considerable resources, money and time in Talent
Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These would highly
capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are
dealing with. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation hold them motivated all the
way?
Imagine
a goldfish in a tank full of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on any high-traffic road. Shoe
polish beside fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? This is precisely how hipots will
feel in case
they have 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:
Consider a situation where your hipot has to
report to a manager who seems to be low on
general intelligence. The manager would most likely spend
more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see
this additional time as waste and incapability of her manager. The hipot will 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 don't want to be told. A hipot would hate for
being directed repeatedly, and they wish to be challenged cognitively. They might prefer guidance only after trying out things on
their own. An environment where the organisation or even the managers are less tolerant towards
learning through experiments and failures will not
likely 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 popular enough ground repel the
talent pool farther from organisation. All it takes in such a situation usually is to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot can find doing work in such an environment insulting. Hipots expect 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 carefully consider 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. If by chance your organisation is attracting talent, you are sure to 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
wages are not going to keep the hipot motivated lastingly
• A Deputy
Assistant VP grade is not going to 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 together with increasing 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 your organisation
• Define the
strategy to recruit hipots. You would have to ensure 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. Should there be 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. 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 grow
• Make the
promotion criteria objective and transparent
• It is completely ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision need to be based on talent pool bench-marking
digital marketing
