Organisations all over the world invest a lot of resources, time and money in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). They are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we're dealing with. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or designation keep them motivated for long?
Visualize a goldfish inside a tank full of fighter fish. A formula1 car on a high-traffic road. Shoe polish next to fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's precisely how hipots will feel if they've got 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 supervisor who seems to be 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 won't find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not really look forward to learning from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
We all know that adults would not like to be told. A hipot would hate for being directed incessantly, and they love to be challenged cognitively. They'd 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 do 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 popular enough ground repel the talent pool from the organisation. Precisely what it takes in such an environment is to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot might find being employed in such an environment insulting. Hipots anticipate to grow in accordance 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 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 buy it from the market? These generally are two different things. In case your organisation is attracting talent, you may 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 lastingly
• 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 may result in interpersonal challenges with an increase in employee churn
Some pointers to 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 would have to ensure 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. In case 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 in 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 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
