Organisations around the world invest a whole lot of resources, money and time in Talent Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). These generally are highly capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are handling. 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 a high-traffic road. Shoe polish beside fruit racks in the retail outlet. How repulsive are these images? That's precisely how hipots will feel if they've to work in an environment that doesn't 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:
Take into consideration a situation where your hipot has to report to a supervisor who's low on general intelligence. The manager would likely take more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see this extra time as waste and incapability of her manager. The hipot would possibly not find enough motivation to sit through the future meetings with the manager or not really look forward to gaining knowledge from the manager.
CULTURE MISMATCH:
Everybody knows that adults wouldn't want to be told. A hipot would hate for being directed repeatedly, they usually like to be challenged cognitively. They would 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 cannot 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 reason to repel the talent pool from the organisation. Precisely what it takes in such an environment would be to manage somehow and stay put for the promotions to happen. A hipot can find working in such an environment insulting. Hipots expect 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 look out 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? These are two different things. Should your organisation is attracting talent, you might always have a talent surplus situation, no matter what the market condition is. If you're buying talent from the market, you may consider the following thoughts:
• Increased salary is not going to keep the hipot motivated all the way
• 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 can lead to interpersonal challenges along with an increased 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 the organisation
• Define the strategy to recruit hipots. You'll have to make certain that they work with managers who can provide them the right environment
• Conduct surveys to check 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 in the organisation. An employee 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 totally ok to not recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision needs to be based on talent pool bench-marking
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