Organisations all over the world invest considerable resources, money and time in Talent
Management to retain High Potentials (HIPOTs). They are highly
capable, intelligent, and quick learning resources that we are
talking about. Would a hike in salary package, grade, or
designation keep them motivated quite a while?

 

Imagine
a goldfish in a tank full of fighter
fish. A formula1 car on any high-traffic road. Shoe
polish next to fruit racks in a retail outlet. How repulsive are these
images? That’s exactly how hipots will
feel they were 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 seems to be low on
general intelligence. The manager would most probably take more time concluding a brainstorming session. The hipot may see
this extra 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
learning from the manager.

 

 

CULTURE MISMATCH:

 

Everyone knows that adults don’t want to be told. A hipot would hate being directed always, plus they want to be challenged cognitively. Generally they
would prefer guidance only after trying out things on
their own. An environment where the organisation or 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 popular enough a way to repel the
talent pool farther from organisation. Precisely what it takes in such an environment usually is to manage somehow and stay
put for the promotions to happen. A hipot will
find operating in such an environment insulting. Hipots anticipate 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 purchase it from the market? These are generally two
different things. In case your organisation is attracting talent, you’ll 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
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 can lead to interpersonal challenges and an increasing amount
of employee churn

 

 

Some pointers
which 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’ll have to ensure that 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. 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 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
absolutely ok not to recruit hipots for your organisation, but this decision needs to be based on talent pool bench-marking

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